


Temporal Anomaly

by HeirOfSpace



Series: A Glitch in the Matrix, a Fracture in Time. [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Actual super powers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Superheroes, Giving a little insight to my thoughts as the New Kid in TFBW, M/M, South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:37:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeirOfSpace/pseuds/HeirOfSpace
Summary: What is a hero, if not someone who is willing to give up everything that makes them happy, for the good of us all?





	1. Game: Start

**Author's Note:**

> New Kid is called Noel Lewis in this one.
> 
> The first four chapters are what was going through my own head when I played The Fractured But Whole, there’s some canon divergence in there but ya know. It fits

He fucking hated South Park.

Okay, perhaps that was an exaggeration. He didn’t hate the town, it was weird and sometimes a little overwhelming, but he didn’t hate it. If he was being honest he really didn’t hate the inhabitants either, they annoyed him more often than not, but that’s where it ended, they annoyed him, nothing more, nothing less.

Noel “New Kid” Lewis has been the “New Kid” for about a year now, it started with his moving into South Park during that goddamn fiasco with the Stick of Truth that turned into a literal fucking zombie apocalypse. Cartman called him “New Kid” then “Douchebag” and finally that freak government agent called him “Dovhakiin”, all names that weren’t even close to his actual name.

To make matters worse, Noel literally couldn’t correct them. Selective mutism is a funny term, seeing as he had no control over when and where he could talk. If he felt safe, secure, comfortable and relaxed he could talk, but there wasnt a place in South Park that fit the criteria anymore. Not even home was safe, his mother had started drinking, his dad started smoking pot and both of them yelled at each other when they thought he wasnt listening.

There were some perks however. And the pretty, fake gold of the crown on his head was one of them. Being crowned The King of both Elves and Humans was such a huge fuck you to Cartman, and he knew it pissed the fat bastard off to no end, Noel liked to rub it in his face sometimes by overriding orders Cartman gave to his subjects.

Who were dwindling.

Another thing that people thought he didn’t notice. Timmy, Token, Tweek, Stan and Kenny didn’t play with them anymore, and of course he noticed. Princess Kenny’s supporters didn’t come by anymore, Kyle had been acting quieter than he usually did without his warrior by his side and for fucks sake Craig was way more irritable than usual.

It all came to a head one morning as Cartman rushed into Kupa Keep dressed as a raccoon, proclaiming himself to be “The Coon from a future where crime is running rampant” and that he was changing the game from fantasy to superheroes, effectively dethroning Noel as king and throwing him back to the bottom of the food chain.

Honestly it was kind of a relief, being in charge meant all sorts of imaginary problems within the kingdom that he had to deal with, uprisings he had to stomp out, trying to untangle words that people (Cartman) put in his mouth. Not having to deal with Kupa Keep meant he could focus on school and helping his parents with whatever issue they had with him.

A small smile crept up his face as he walked away from Cartman's house, hopping over the “lava” that no longer applied to him and towards his house, this was good, this was safe and they could just leave him the fuck out of whatever plan they’d cooked up.

But as he got closer to his house, his stomach lurched and he stopped, the farther away he got from Cartman's house, the more urgent the feeling to go back and investigate became. It was almost as though he had an objective to fufi-

Oh no.

Noel heaved a groan and sunk to the ground, his hands coming up to tangle in his hair as blue sparked around his fingers. No, he was done with this, the game was over, he didn’t have to play anymore. That was the deal. He didn’t have to play superheroes, he could just go home! It was a few feet away, he cou-

He couldn’t ignore this.

With a strangled shout and a very broken “FUCK!” Noel pulled himself off of the ground and walked back towards Cartman's house, grim determination written on his features.

He had a game to win.


	2. Death of a Friend? Preventable

Noel, er, The Amazing Butthole (ugh, why didn’t he just draw dicks over everything Cartman loved until he let him pick his own superhero name? He wanted his name to be Temporal Anomaly, or even just Anomaly) figured he should really be feeling more than just indifference and a little sadness over the death of Captain Diabetes.

See, this is where his apathy from years of being harassed by people he didn’t know for a selfie from him or “just one quick mention, please I need the followers” became an issue.

They’d been chasing a high class hooker (her name was actually Classi, what a doll) when she ran into a different building, alerting a guard to their presence.

And then, in a typical South Park Adult fashion, the fucking idiot shot his gun into the air and was immediately crushed and killed by a falling metal vent, blocking them from the entrance to the place Classi ran into and effectively stopping their chase. Butthole (FUCK he hated that name) figured he and Captain Diabetes could easily find another way around by going through the chain link fence or even going back into the strip club and walking into the establishment next to it like a normal pair of children.

Instead, again, in a oh so typical South Park inhabitant fashion, Captain Diabetes drinks his apple juice box and attempts to wrench the vent from atop the body of the guard, only to find he couldn’t even move it an inch, his diabetes fueled strength failing him.

“I guess,” he heaved, smiling at Butthole, “I must have… spent myself!”

Scott reached for the insulin on his little chest strap, hand coming up empty as he realized he’d already used all of his insulin earlier in the night.

He cried out, collapsing, yelling something about diabetic shock before his eyes closed and he died.

Well.

Noel looked at the body of his former friend and crime fighting partner and felt a pang of sadness, panic and regret before it all faded against his typical every day apathy. He should really get that fixed and normalized before he grew up fully, it could seriously detract from his ability to function in society.

The words of Morgan Freeman filled his head and Noel jumped a little, right, he kinda had time powers, no reason to lament the death of a friend if it never happened.

“‘Use your farts to turn back time New Kid.’” He mocked out loud, a smirk curling up his lips, ironic that now of all times he’s comfortable enough to actually speak. “I’ll kindly pass on the farting, no one important is watching after all.”

Pulling his hands up, he pulled the delicate pink gloves (courtesy of Bebe, she was such an excellent seamstress) off of his right hand and yanked his sleeve up, bright blue markings whirring audibly and pulling themselves like holograms off of his skin.

“Can’t believe my powers have been activating because of my farts of all things, maybe it’s something I’m eating?” Noel mumbled to himself as he pulled time backwards, bringing both Scott, er, Captain Diabetes, and the guard back to life.

Said guard panicked as he realized that he was suddenly alive again and dropped his gun, sprinting inside and leaving the door conveniently ajar.

Captain Diabetes blinked and smiled gratefully at Butthole, who smiled back at him. He thought of exactly what he would say to Captain Diabetes while he was still comfortable enough to speak an-

“Wow! So you can move objects through time with the power of your farts huh? That’s impressive!” Captain Diabetes slurred.

Noel (you fucking know what? No, no more Butthole, fuck that), could feel the exact moment his voice box stiffened as he became extremely uncomfortable with the situation the second those words were said and his smile disappeared as quickly as it came.

As Noel followed Captain Diabetes into the restaurant and saw Human Kite, The Coon, and Mosquito all sat nice and warm and relaxed in a booth, waiting for food, he realized that maybe, just maybe.

When it came to these people, perhaps being completely apathetic to anything that happens is a good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that always bothered me is how little New Kids time powers were touched on, i super don’t think that they were fart related since when he comes back from the past where his parents told him everything, he still has em.
> 
> So I’m just gonna go ahead and say he’s always had em.


	3. Apathy Is Not Your Friend

Noel takes it back.

When it comes to the likes of Eric Fucking Cartman, being apathetic to his behavior and just following along is the worst fucking thing one can do.

Panic was filling Noel’s lungs as his parents fought with each other at the worst possible time.

“Go kill mommy cupcake!!”

“No! Sweetie, kill your daddy!”

The yelling continued back and forth, back and forth, insults flying as Noel sunk to the ground and pulled his head in between his knees to try and stop the hyperventilation.

And was it just him, or was the room spinning?

God he couldn’t do this! Cartman was a sick bastard, forcing him to choose between his mom or his dad, one of them had to die in order for him to leave this room and help his friends, he had to abandon the very mission to save both of them in order to save one of them.

His lungs felt like they were full of molasses and for a second he thought he was having an allergic reaction because it was like his fucking windpipe closed up and he couldn’t breathe!

It was when Noel let out a loud, strangled sob and the tears fell out of wide eyes, that all other noise in the room stopped completely.

“... Cupcake.” His dad said, softly, in that familiar tone of voice he used to calm Noel after a bad panic attack when he was younger and more prone to emotional outbursts.

Noel’s head snapped up and he locked mismatched eyes with his father's brown ones.

“Cupcake, kill me.” He said, gently hushing Noel when the boy made another strangled shrieking noise. “Sweetie please, I know you’re scared, but I need you to be strong for mommy. Activate this machine and get out of here, go find help for mommy.”

Noel hiccuped as he pulled himself off of the floor, viciously wiping away tears from his eyes, approaching his father as his mother stayed quiet for the first time in months about his father's opinions.

“Cmere a second Noa, it’s okay.” His dad said, turning his head to the side and pressing a kiss to Noel’s forehead when he was close enough. “This isn’t your fault cupcake, it never will be, everything will be okay. I love you very much.”

Noel shook violently as he walked to the back of the machines, he pressed the buttons rapidly and clapped his hands over his ears when the sound of a laser starting up rang out, followed by a sickening squelch as something wet and heavy hit the floor.

The molasses was back in his lungs as he slowly walked over to his father's head where it sat on the ground. As he picked it up, he did everything he could to avoid looking into it’s dead eyes, pushing it into the terminal awaiting his DNA and slamming the door shut.

There was a disgusting blending noise and the door barring the tram from the rest of the facility opened.

—

Mysterion was staring at him. 

Noel could vaguely tell that the vigilante was staring at him, but then again, it kind of felt like everyone was staring at him, as though they knew what he’d done. Everything else felt as though it were being shown to him through a blurry filter, every sound was being broadcasted to him underwater.

He could feel Mysterion’s stare on his face, his eyes must still be wide. Or maybe he was a couple shades lighter. Maybe he could even see Noel’s guilt.

“What took you so long New Kid? You just screwing around having fun?” Toolshed snapped as the rest of his group came down to join him.

For a moment anger overrided the guilt and sadness he felt, for a moment he wanted nothing more than to scream how he felt, that no, he wasn’t fucking screwing around. He balled his hands into fists and immediately all the anger he felt vanished.

Noel’s hands were still sticky with his dad's blood.

He had started to lag behind as the Freedom Pals walked towards the greenhouse where Coon and Mitch Conner had fled to. Could you blame him? He couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t stop hearing his dad’s death rattle as his head was sawed from his body, he still smelled blood, so much blood.

“New Kid?” Came Mysterion’s raspy voice, “are you… crying?”

That caught everyone’s attention. Apathetic Noel? Crying? What a joke.

There were so many pairs of eyes on him, and he shook his head in response to Mysterion’s question, wiping at his eyes with the palm of his hands, only to jerk back from his own touch as he smeared blood on his face.

“Is, is that blood?! Oh Jesus Christ!!” Wonder Tweek’s panicked voice shrieked.

“New Kid what did you do?!” That was Toolshed, and of course this was all his fault, pin it on the mute, like that was fair.

“Yes Noel, what did you do?” Mitch Connor's infuriating sing-song voice echoed from across the greenhouse.

Their attention was ripped from Noel to Cartman and their expressions went from confused to angry.

“I’ve got to know, which one did you pick Noel?” Mitch asked, murderous glee in his voice.

“W-what is he talking about New Kid?” Human Kite asked, ever the picture of innocent confusion.

Noel stayed quiet, as he usually did, but he felt something crawling up his esophagus, begging to be released.

The others were beginning to look at him with horrified realization, the situation slowly making itself clear.

“Still not talking? Okay, how about I guess.”

Noel took a step forward, wide eyes focused solely on Cartman even as the others moved to stop him.

“Lemme see, your mom has a bad arm doesn’t she? Is she okay?” Mitch asked, watching Noel closely as he shook with anger, “oh… doesn’t your dad space out a lot? He’d lose his head if it wasn’t attach- FUCK!”

Whatever Mitch was going to say was cut off as the scream that was crawling up his throat forced itself out of his mouth and Noel launched himself at Cartman, kicking and clawing at anything he could reach.

There was shouting behind him but he couldn’t care less, his only objective was getting this fat piece of shit to feel the same all encompassing PAIN HE WAS FEELING.

Noel was a good fighter, had to be, people in South Park were insane, however as it turns out, being extremely angry blinds you to everything.

Such as a left hook to the jaw.

Mitch socked him right in the mouth, the force of the blow throwing him off of him and the next thing he knew there was a strong hand around his neck and he really couldn’t breathe now.

“I wouldn’t have had to do this if I could just get the DNA to clone my own New Kid, you know. I guess I could have just asked you, traded for it, but then, I would have missed seeing the desperation on your face.” Mitch said, tightening his hold on Noel’s neck, making him choke and making the other Freedom Pals freeze in their attempt to get Cartman off. “I made do though, and cloned a different superhero.”

“What hero?” Human Kite asked.

The ground began to shake and Mitch began to laugh, jumping off of Noel and sprinting across the room with more agility and speed than someone of Cartman’s size should possess.

Noel moved to follow him only to be stopped by the sound of Human Kite’s cousin Kyle’s booming voice proclaiming:

“I’m baaaaack!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the decision in THAT part of the game came up, I legit paced around for TWO HOURS, trying to see which one I wanted to save or if I could just put in my own DNA and I was actually in tears at the end of it because well, that’s super fucked up.


	4. Game: Over

This day had officially dragged on for way too fucking long.

First, after the annoying as hell fight against Human Kite’s mutated cousin they left the facility only to find that Noel had pulled them all a week into the future, meaning they’d missed Connor being sworn in.

Which, of course, was immediately pinned on him being an idiot and not them telling him to go forward in time multiple fucking times during the fight.

Second, they’d all gone to Freeman’s Tacos and retrieved the Seven Layer Quesarrito Chipotle Beefy Nacho Supreme, an abomination to Mexican cuisine that Noel would be happy to never try again, and attempted to use his farts to go back in time and stop Mitch Connor from ever rising to power.

But as per usual, as is fucking expected when people try to have him use his ass to control his powers instead of, you know, how he usually does it, he’d sent them forward in time again- a full year after the election.

Running through the streets, trying to avoid being eaten by Woodland Critters as well as trying not to be crushed by the many throes of drunk and high adults was not the correct way for Noel to deal with the loss of his father.

Third, he had honest to god fractured his fucking asshole.

How does that even happen?! How does someone actually manage to fracture their ass? Better yet, how does a drunk abortion clinic doctor manage to actually fix it?! A splint? And the fact that it actually worked enough to allow him to send him and his friends back in time, to the beginning of this entire shitshow is beyond ridiculous.

But, he supposed that anything can happen in South Park.

—

If the situation they were currently in were any less severe, Noel might be having a gay episode over how strong Mysterion is.

It’s absolutely not fair that Kenny McCormick could go from a fair and beautiful maiden to someone who Noel would happily let step on him. Like, goddamn he had it bad.

Why did he always fall for straight boys?

Focusing on the matter at hand though, Mysterion has lifted Cartman straight off of his feet (damn) and was currently yelling at him to show them his left hand.

Sure enough, Mitch Connor was on it and wow, Cartman was still trying to play them as if they all didn’t know he was Mitch Connor.

“I still know something you all don’t .” He taunted.

“What’s that?” Toolshed demanded.

“How to make someone fart super bad by hitting them in the solar plexus.”

Noel jerked backwards as Cartman shouted “Connor no!” And punched him hard in the chest.

Fart super bad? Check. In incredible pain? Double check. Wind knocked out of him in more ways than fucking one? Triple check.

Cartman had him by the arm as he involuntarily sent them both further back in time than was probably healthy for him.

When Noel came to again, Connor was rambling something about preventing him from ever becoming a superhero by changing the past but Noel wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.

He was far more interested in the younger version of himself, who was looking at him in terror.

The little Noel lifted his hands and rapidly signed out:

‘Who are you?’

Normal Noel felt the dread build in his chest as he shakily lifted his own, blood soaked arms.

‘You. From the future. Don’t listen to the fat one, where are your parents?’

Little Noel turned and walked out of his room, and as Noel moved to follow, he let out a shaky sigh as he realized that he knew this house. It was his old bedroom in Virginia.

Fuck, he missed that life. It wasn’t totally normal, but it wasn’t South Park.

“Go on then, follow him.” Connor said, and Noel obliged, he was curious to see how this would effect everything.

He followed Little Noel out into the hallway as the invaders from his Cartman created origin story made themselves known, he remembered what actually happened next, it wasn’t a fight to protect his mother, nothing of the sort.

The “invaders” were nothing more than a couple losers, having found out where he lived and wanting a selfie so that they could have some followers for the first time in their lives.

And of course both him and Little Noel agreed, it was easier to just agree, these adults were significantly bigger and stronger than him, and he didn’t want to get in a fight in front of himself.

Then they were inside his parents room.

And Noel thought he would cry.

His dad was okay, his mom was safe. They were both smoking pot and drinking respectively and then they were explaining everything.

His social media powers were inherited from them, instagram, Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, all of the proficiency and followers and photogenicness was attributed to his parents.

The medicine excuse didn’t really explain his time powers, mainly cause they didn’t come from his ass but well, it was the closest thing to answers he could get.

His parents let out relieved sighs and proudly proclaimed that they didn’t need to rely on narcotics and liquor anymore to cope with the guilt of lying to their son because he now knew everything that had been going on.

“What about you Sweetie? Can you believe in yourself?” His mother asked at the end of her proclamation.

Noel looked at them and smiled, turning to the little Noel and pulling his hands up.

‘Learn restraint, tell your parents how much you love them often and trust me, learning to fight will save you, we seem to like Krav Maga best.’ He signed to his younger self who nodded, familiar determination on his face.

Noel took a deep breath and believed in himself.

—

Mitch Connor and the Coon were defeated, the town of South Park would now have clean drugs and alcohol (like that was any better) and the proudly named Freedom Pals had kicked Cartman out of the group and proclaimed he would never be allowed to play with them again.

Noel gave it a week.

As it were, he was finally back in front of his door step, looking at it as though it held all the secrets of the universe behind its solid wood. If everything worked, it held something much more precious, to him at least.

Noel pushed the door open and froze, a wide smile pulling at his face as relief filled his body.

“Mom! Dad!” He shouted, sprinting forwards and launching himself at his parents, who were having the time of their lives tickling one another.

“Woah cupcake! You’re acting like you haven’t seen us in a while!” His dad said, hugging Noel close.

“You have no idea.” Noel replied, voice muffled from where he had buried it in his dad’s shirt.

He heard his mom clear his throat and then his dad gently lifted him up and off of his person.

“Noa, your mother and I need to take care of some adult… business upstairs.” He said, making Noel snort.

“Use protection.” Noel deadpanned, laughing when his mother gasped in indignation and his dad ruffled his hair.

As his parents roamed up the stairs, Noel sunk into the couch, exhaustion finally taking its toll on him. He could really go for some ice cream and tv for the rest of the afternoon, but first, he needed to change out of his superhero costume.

He headed up towards his bedroom, trying to pointedly ignore the moaning coming from his parents room, when Butters’ voice reached his ears. The apparently evil again Professor Chaos was talking about how he couldn’t change time and how no matter what he did his dad would always fuck his mom and that he should join Chaos’ side.

“Butters.” Noel said, noting the way said boy jumped when he was addressed for the first time by Noel. “I am well aware my dad will always fuck my mom. It’s what adults do. It’s how I was conceived. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really want to just relax for the rest of today and I can’t do that until I change out of my costume.”

“Oh. Uh. Well okay then!” Butters said, smiling at Noel. “Gosh New Kid, I didn’t know you could talk! Why, we all just assumed you were mute!”

“First, my name is Noel, please spread that around. Second, i am mute, I was diagnosed with selective mutism when I was very young. If I’m in situation where I feel comfortable, safe and relaxed I can speak.” He replied, heading towards his bedroom.

“That doesn’t sound very selective at all.”

“Boy you’re telling me.”

As Noel pushed open his bedroom door, he turned back to Butters.

“You know, you, Wendy and honestly, most of the girls, have been the only people who were somewhat decent to me. If your parents are cool with it, you’re welcome to stay here for a while. I’m gonna make sundaes.” He chirped.

“Well sure!! I’d like that New Ki- er, Noel!”

Noel beamed at his official new friend.

“Sweet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I had thought I’d killed one of my parents, id be so relieved to know that they’re okay.
> 
> Also, cannonically in TSOT and TFBW, the girls are the only ones who treat you fairly well and Butters is pretty all right to you too.
> 
> This is where the story starts to take a life of its own.


	5. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It kicks the Fuck off.
> 
> Also: here’s a Little Noel I drew. https://twitter.com/peachie_momo/status/933901107117490176

It’s incredible how quickly the world can go to shit.

Nine years had passed since the events of the superhero game the kids of South Park played. People moved on, people grew up and matured, the idea of playing superhero was slowly forgotten, abandoned for more grownup ideas of feasible careers and life partners.

And then the Breach happened.

August 3rd, 3 years ago. It was a normal day, typical summer day, children ran about, trying to get as much done before school started up again and took up all their time.

Noel could remember that day very well, mainly because he replayed it so many times, trying to understand how it happened.

He was 15 at the time, that day he was hanging out with Butters instead of Wendy and the rest of the girls. Noel has been trying to pull Butters away from Cartman and his posse, who was trying to regale the two with a foolproof plan to get rich within the week, all they needed (of course) was 100 dollars from the both of them and they could get started.

He could remember locking eyes with Kenny, trying to wordlessly ask for the taller teen’s help in getting them out of a situation Butters would undoubtedly fall for and Noel would end up following along to make sure they didn’t get his friend killed.

And then the ground shook.

At first everyone was so sure it was just an earthquake, that after the shocks had passed there wouldn’t be any more.

But the earth split into multiple holes, bright multicolored lights shooting into the air high above everyone before beginning a rapid descent into the people below.

People hit by the lights began to change, some gained enhanced durability, incredibly thick skin and rapid cell regeneration, others became living data terminals, holding so much knowledge, with a seemingly endless storage for more.

Others gained literal superpowers.

The general populous only had a couple hours to get used to the sudden change before the invasion started.

Cracks appeared in the air, in walls, in houses, as though reality was a mirror and things were breaking the glass to get to the world beyond. Monsters, demons, specters, so many different creatures from stories told to children to keep them from misbehaving began to pour through the cracks.

That day, humanity split into four categories. Instigators. Scrappers. Informants. Mundane. These categories were assigned to make the new life they were thrown into easier.

It should have been more unnerving how quickly they adapted to the situation.

—

“Noel!”

At the sound of his name, Noel turned to face the person who called him, making a soft noise as he was barreled into.

“G’morning Wendy. Don’t you usually walk to school with Stan?” Noel signed, tilting his head in confusion, no matter how he tried, he could never feel safe enough in school to talk.

Wendy Testaburger, his self proclaimed best friend, glowered at him making him chirp nervously and raise his hands in an effort to regain the peace.

“He’s being a douche again, I refuse to talk to him.”

Noel raised an eyebrow, this wasn’t anything new per say, but the reasons why Wendy was pissed at Stan changed every week.

“What did he do?” He asked, fingers moving rapidly.

“You know how there was a category 5 creature Breach near the theatre last night?”

Noel nodded and Wendy continued.

“Toolshed was dispatched along with his Informant, me, to take care of the problem. It was a small fry, barely a problem, but one we hadn’t seen before. We didn’t know where it’s weak spot was so I had to run diagnostics on the creature while Stan fought.”

“... What did he do?” Noel asked.

“He said I should have been faster in finding its weak spot!! I only took five minutes!”

Noel scoffed and Wendy threw her hands into the air.

“Exactly! Thank you! I’m the fastest fucking Informant this side of Colorado and he wants me to go faster?!”

He patted her shoulder sympathetically as they both began to walk towards their shared first period, this spurned her to continue.

“I don’t usually care about people critiquing my ability, because I know I’m doing the best I can, but it really hurts when he does it! He’s supposed to be my boyfriend, I can’t understand why he’s so critical of me!”

“You said this has been going on for a month? What happened before?” Noel asked.

Wendy went quiet before she sighed heavily and put her head on Noel’s shoulder.

“Last month, when I was assigned to him, I replaced Kyle as his Informant.”

“What?! Why?!”

“Chill, I made a mistake during a Nest raid that cost Denver a lot of money in property damage. To punish me they reassigned me from my old partner.”

“Shit, wasn’t your partner the top Instigator?”

“Please, we both know the top Instigator is at the White House protecting our spineless president. My partner was pretty damn good though, codename Spider Lily.”

“The shadow manipulator? Damn, to go from him to Stan is a major downgrade.”

“Be nice, Stan is a good Instigator.” Wendy snapped, giving Noel a very dangerous look.

“I’m not saying he’s not, I’m saying that he tends to take risks he shouldn't be taking, and that’s why he’s stuck dealing with classes 5-8.”

Wendy fell silent as they walked into their AP English class, pointedly ignoring Stan while striding to her desk next to Bebe.

As Noel took his seat beside her, she turned her body to face him and signed to him, a clear sign that this conversation was private.

“Regardless of the risks he takes, the only way for him to get Kyle back as an Informant, is if he dismisses me or a higher clearance Instigator demands my skill set.”

Bebe let out a low whistle as he and Wendy talked, catching their attention and allowing her to jump into the conversation.

“ASL to disguise our conversation, means there’s something juicy you two aren’t telling me!” She signed, making Noel snort.

“Just Stan being a douche again Babs, nothing new.” Noel said, before turning fully to her, “you on the other hand, do have new news, if the excited text you sent to the group chat was any indication.”

Bebe honest to god squealed and began speaking, moving closer to Wendy and Noel.

“Yesterday, when my Scrapper crew and I arrived on clean up we discovered something groundbreaking inside a Class 3 demon.” She said conspiratorially, “we found an intact and still developing egg.”

Noel’s eyes widened comically as Wendy recoiled back before shaking herself out and getting close again.

“Details.”

“Don’t know any, we weren’t able to investigate on site, but they’re bringing it to South Park, because we were the group who found it so, duh, law of discovery and we just so happen to have our very own time lord in town who can keep it in stasis and help us run duress tests.” Bebe said, her voice trailing off into sing song as Noel beamed.

“You need my help?”

“Uh? Duh? Noel please, you’re one of the few people who were gifted with time powers, some might even say you had em before the Breach with how good you are with them.”

Noel forced a smile, Bebe had no idea how right she was.

The trio continued to chatter for a while (or sign in Noel’s case) until the teacher walked into the class and started the lesson.

Towards the end of class, the intercom pinged on with a pop and the clear voice of PC Principal rang out.

“Will Noel Lewis and Bebe Stevens report to the principal's office? Noel Lewis and Bebe Stevens to my office.”

Noel and Bebe shared a look and rose to their feet. As he moved towards the door, Noel shot Wendy a look and jerked his head in a “follow me” motion.

When Wendy rose from her seat, Stan rose from his.

“Lewis, Wendy is my Informant, you can’t just take her.” He ground out.

Noel locked eyes with Stan and glared, pulling his hands to rapidly sign something at him, fully expecting Kyle to translate before hurrying to follow Bebe, pulling Wendy along.

“Wh- Kyle what did he say?”

Kyle was pale as he addressed Stan.

“He invoked higher Instigator clearance and relieved Wendy of her duty to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like the direction I’m taking this story, and I will be continuing on as though you know what I’m talking about so lemme set some things straight.
> 
> Instigators: super powered humans who fight and eliminate invading enemies. (Noel, Kenny, Cartman, Tweek, Stan, Jimmy and Butters.)
> 
> Informants: highly intelligent humans able to pinpoint weak spots in enemies. (Wendy, Craig, Heidi, Token, Timmy, Kyle and Charlotte)
> 
> Scrappers: Clean up crews, enhanced durability/strength/regeneration allows them to clean up toxic corpses. (Bebe, Clyde, Annie, Red and Nichole)
> 
> Some Scrappers and Informants can have minor powers, though not to the extent of Instigators. Craig is one (he has them sick nasty eye lasers from the Peru episode + enhanced strength) and Timmy is one (he can speak to people mentally)
> 
> Stan is a good Instigator and he cares about people, but he cares way too much sometimes and jeopardizes his missions in an attempt to make sure there are no casualties. His heart is in the right place but the risks he takes is keeping him stuck at Level 5 Instigator.
> 
> The enemies danger levels go from 1 to 8 with 8 being the lowest and 1 being the highest.
> 
> Instigators are always paired with an Informant to maximize success and minimize death.
> 
> Instigators have ranks from 1 - 5 depending on mission success rate, enemy mortality rate and power level. 1 and 2 Instigators can take whatever missions they’d like, 3s can take missions ranging from class 3-8. 4 can take classes 4-8 and 5s can take classes 5-8 (1: none from SP. 2: Kenny. 3: Noel, Tweek. 4: Jimmy. 5: Stan and Cartman)
> 
> If you have any questions please ask me!!


	6. Assumptions are Bad for Your Health

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your comments! They mean so much to me and give me motivation to keep writing.

The last thing Kenny McCormick expected to see when he walked into South Park’s Research and Mission Facility was Stan Marsh and Noel Lewis, of all people, deeply invested in a screaming match.

His face contorted into a scowl, this was also the last thing he wanted to see as he was coming back from a stressful mission.

‘ _They sure are going at it hard aren’t they?_ ’ Timmy’s voice rang from inside his head, making Kenny look at his Informant.

“They really are.” He hissed, striding forwards to where the two were arguing, dark purple cape flapping out behind him.

As he got closer the words became more understandable.

“You can’t just barge in and take whatever the fuck you want Noel!” Stan snapped.

“Oh, I’m sorry? I wasn’t aware that Wendy was suddenly an object for me and you to own, I’ll be sure to refer to her as such.” Noel replied, blue band around his neck pulsing with energy.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it, quit putting words in my mouth!”

“Firstly, now you know how _that_ feels so suck it up you whining bitch. Secondly, you have been doing nothing but treating my _best friend_ like a fucking tool since your Informant got reassigned!”

“You continue to get involved in our relationship when no ones asked for your opinion! I’m starting to think that you’re the one who wants to date Wendy!”

“For the last fucking time you thick headed idiot. I. Am. _Gay_! I have never and will never see Wendy in a romantic sense!! And apparently you’ve stopped seeing her as such!”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means maybe you should re-evaluate your fucking feelings for her because I swear to god, if I have to comfort her from your stupidity one more time, I swear to _God,_ I will make you regret ever being born!”

“What the hell is going on here?!” Kenny demanded as he finally got close enough.

Both participants of the fight jumped and turned to look at him as he approached

“Kenny!” They said in surprised unison.

Kenny pulled the hood of his costume down, scowling deeply at the two until they both bowed their heads in shame.

“What happened to make you two fight in the middle of an active mission deck?!” He demanded.

Despite his apparent awareness of how childish it looked to do it, Noel pointed at Stan.

“He followed me, Bebe and Wendy into Lab 4 despite having no clearance whatsoever to be there!!” He said.

Stan scoffed and crossed his arms, turning to Noel and leaning forward ever so slightly, still dwarfing the smaller teen.

“I only followed you in because you stole my Informant with no warning!”

“ _Again_ , if you hadn’t been treating her like a tool, I wouldn’t have had to fucking activate my higher clearance to take her from you!”

“You should just let us set-“

“ENOUGH!” Kenny roared, effectively silencing the other two instigators. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep sigh. “Look, I know you two are having your differences, but maybe instead of _screaming_ at each other, you can both actually talk this out like mature people and not 5 year olds.”

The two went silent for a while before Stan sighed and held out his hand to Noel, who looked at it warily.

“Truce?” He asked, giving Noel a weary smile, “at least until we talk this out?”

There was a moment where Kenny thought Noel wouldn’t take Stan's hand, that kid could hold a grudge longer than anyone he’s ever seen. It’s been nine years and he _still_ refused to take any missions that involved Eric Cartman.

“Truce.” Noel said with a firm nod, shaking Stan's hand once before turning on his heel and stalking towards Lab 4.

“So.” Kenny began, looking at his friend of nearly two decades. “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

Stan groaned.

“Come on Ken, I get enough mothering from Kyle, I don’t need you to do it too.” He said, tilting his head to the ceiling and placing a hand over his eyes.

“Well, it's a good thing I’m not asking because I want to mother you.” Kenny said with a lopsided smile, taking Stan’s elbow and beginning a walk towards the facilities shower room. “I’m asking as a friend, who can tell you need a fresh pair of eyes to look at whatever is going on.”

Stan shot him a grateful, if not slightly exasperated look before he began talking.

“It started with Wendy’s reassignment last month…”

——-

“Everything go okay with Stan?” Was the first thing Wendy asked when Noel walked back inside the lab.

The blue, circuit like band around Noel’s neck flickered and went out, making him place a hand on the back of his neck and roll it.

This was fine though, he needed the band when confronted with a situation that he simultaneously could never be comfortable in and required him to talk.

But he was nothing but comfortable in front of Wendy and Bebe.

Oh, and Clyde. He was there too.

“Went about as well as you’d expect.” Noel said, walking around to where the demon egg had been placed in an incubator, “which is to say, not well at all.”

“Did you win the argument?” Bebe asked, smiling shamelessly when Noel shot her a look.

“Technically no? Kenny cut in and put a _very_ firm end to the conversation.” He looked at Clyde. “Enough about that though, what did you two need me for?”

“As you know, time manipulation powers are incredibly rare, and as far as _I_ know, there hasn’t been someone with such a broad range of things they can do with time as you can Noel.” Clyde said.

“Please get to the point.”

“Right. Well, we need you to put the egg in a stasis, so we can run tests on it without worrying about an expiration date.”

Noel went quiet for a while, he rolled blue sparks between his fingers as he thought before he finally looked up and fixed Clyde and Bebe with a look.

“I need your word that you won’t be trying to _hatch_ this thing.” He said, raising his hand as the two began to protest. “No, the last thing we need is one of these adapting bastards being born inside our base of operations! Swear to me that you won’t hatch it and I’ll place it in a stasis, hell, I’ll even make it so you can reverse the time on it if you fuck something up.”

“Noel, you can’t understand how useful it could be if we’re able to hatch this!” Clyde protested.

“It’s either you promise or you’ll have a time limit.”

As Clyde opened his mouth to argue more, Bebe held her hand up and nodded.

“Deal. We won’t try to hatch it, and we’ll make sure to have people around to make sure that we don’t.” She said, shooting Clyde a stern look when made a low whining noise.

Noel studied Bebe with narrowed eyes, trying to see if she was lying to him before he nodded once and flicked his wrist, familiar blue gears activating and pulling from his skin.

“Where do you want it?”

Bebe and Clyde both pointed out the area where the stasis would sit, with Wendy running diagnostics and correcting their math so they’d have the most stable time loop possible.

Once the area was set apart, Noel pulled the time around it into tangibility and set to work getting it to loop and then getting the loop to stabilize.

When it was all said and done Noel let out a groan and sprawled out on the floor.

“That’s so dirty dude, get up.” Clyde said, not so much paying attention to him as he was the egg.

“Yeah Noa, you'll get dust all over your clothes.” Bebe chirped, also preferring the egg to her friend.

“I can’t really take the two of you seriously when you’re, ya know, _not even looking at me_.” Noel replied drily, giving Wendy a Look when the two Scrappers just hummed noncommittally. “How are we friends with these two Wens?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” She said with a snort, hopping off of her seat and helping Noel to his feet.

The two bid their egg engrossed friends good bye and left the laboratory.

Only to bump into a frantic assistant.

“Oh good! I was looking for the two of you!” The woman said, slightly out of breath and pulling blonde hair out of her eyes. “First, we'll need you to submit the paperwork to accept Wendy Testaburger as your official Informant, but more importantly!”

She handed Noel a case file.

“You and Stan Marsh are to be briefed for a mission regarding an active Breach in downtown Denver. Please report to meeting room 6 immediately!”

Wendy and Noel shared a look before thanking the woman and running towards the room.

Things were kicking off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully things aren’t getting difficult to keep track of.
> 
> Here’s a quick run down of our instigators powers. Some have two for unknown reasons, others (like Kenny and Noel) got an extra power on top of what they already had. To protect their daily lives, the Instigators chose aliases to hide their identities, since TFBW basically gave these to us, I’ll be using them with the exception of Tweek, who probably would have changed his to keep his name out of it.
> 
> Kenny: able to move through shadows, immortal (people actually remember his deaths now) ((Mysterion))
> 
> Noel: able to charm (like Evelynn from LoL) people and enemies alike, extreme control over time. ((Anomaly))
> 
> Butters: thunder and lightning manipulation (Professor Chaos)
> 
> Stan: can manipulate all sorts of tech, prefers power tools as his main weapons (Toolshed)
> 
> Tweek: Ice and lightning manipulation (Frostbite)
> 
> Jimmy: Super speed (Fastpass)
> 
> Cartman: super strength and agility (The Coon)


	7. First Rule of Fight Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, you guys should see what I name my files lmao.

This thing was absolutely _not_ a class 5 monster.

Anomaly narrowly avoided a tentacle swinging over his head as the thing took a swipe at Toolshed, who was evacuating civilians as per the mission protocol.

“Duck!!” Came Toolshed’s voice from his right.

Anomaly turned and was consequently smacked right in the chest by yet another tentacle. He was flung through the air, landing heavily atop a different building and he wheezed.

“Fuck, this thing is annoying!!” He snapped, flicking his wrist out and moving his body back through time to his previous position on the roof parallel to Toolshed.

“Anomaly I need you to draw that thing away until everyone’s been evacuated!” Said person shouted.

“On it!”

The two were getting along surprisingly well despite the… explosion earlier during briefing, where both heroes dissolved into yet another screaming match about who’s Informant should be who’s.

Which is why, coincidentally, Kyle Broflovski was speaking to Anomaly and not Toolshed.

“Kyle, find me a sturdy surface to draw the monsters fire!”

“Are you sure about that? That thing is incredibly big…” Kyle’s concerned voice said through his com.

“Kyle, my powers rely on the sole fact that I’m a giant _distraction_. I mean come on, Charms that can affect Mx. Hentai Nightmare over there? We gotta get it away from the civilians some how, now find me a sturdy surface to land on!”

“... I got it! Two blocks away, there’s an abandoned building due to be torn down, you can avoid property damage.”

Anomaly twirled on the soles of his feet as Kyle sent the coordinates to his watch, moving towards the monster he cracked his neck and called out to it, embarrassment for what he was about to say to a _monster_ making him flush.

“Come on Love,” He cooed, voice dripping like honey and echoing slightly, “let your guard down~”

As expected, the words had the desired effect on the monster as a bright purple film came over what Anomaly assumed were eyes.

“‘Let your guard down?’” Kyle asked.

“I’m embarrassed enough about it, if you can come up with ‘sexier’ phrases for me to say then I’m all ears.” Anomaly snapped, zipping from rooftop to rooftop, avoiding tentacles that were officially attempting to pull him into the set of a bad hentai.

“I’ll be sure to write you some lines later.”

“ _Joy_.”

Kyles slightly mocking laughter followed him as he ducked under another tentacle moving as quickly as he could towards the abandoned building that was rapidly getting closer.

As Anomaly made the final leap to the roof, a tentacle clipped him in the back, sending him flying forwards and he collided with the ground of the abandoned rooftop.

“Anomaly are you okay?!”

“Gonna have a _major_ scar from that skid but, otherwise I’m fine, get ready to run a diagnostics on that thing because it’s about to get crazy!!” He said, pulling a hilt out of his pocket.

Familiar blue spread across this hilt, changing shape until it created small circles of time that spun horizontally up the hilt, creating a sword of materialized time.

“Holy shit, I didn't know you could do that.”

“I could fill a _book_ with the amount of things you don’t know about me, now run diagnostics!” He snapped his fingers, dispelling the charm and then dropping to the floor as it roared in anger and spit a ball of acid at him.

Rolling into a squatting position, Anomaly reared the sword level to his face and sprinted towards the monster, sliding on his knees as he pierced his sword through the flesh of one of its fleshy tentacles.

The monster shrieked as thick blue blood spilled from is open wound, small droplets of it splattering onto Anomaly’s body and immediately burning through his suit and into his flesh.

“FUCK!” He screamed, rolling to the side and fighting not to clutch at the wound, swinging his sword at an arc instead and slicing right through an incoming tentacle which was trying to take advantage of his pain. “Acidic blood!! Make note of that please!”

“Get to safety! There are multiple vents you can hide behind!”

Anomaly hopped backwards a couple steps, dashing behind an air conditioning vent while the monster shrieked and flailed in agony and assessed his own wounds, as he settled, he noticed the blood had completely soaked through the ground of the ceiling, dripping into the floors below.

“Boy am I glad we didn’t hurt this thing back at it’s Breaching point.”

“It’s head and it’s chest are it’s weak spots, now move! Incoming projectiles!”

Anomaly cursed, pulling into a handstand to avoid the first projectile and then using the momentum to throw himself back onto his feet and avoid the second, he then pulled his sword flat side up like a baseball bat to his shoulder and _swung_ at the third one.

Since time wasn’t something that could be destroyed by acid, the ball was struck back to its owner, splattering right between its eyes and eroding the flesh around the area.

“Kyle, why isn’t it going down?!” Anomaly demanded, frantically dodging erratic tentacles as he looked for another opening.

“You have to pierce both weak spots in unison! We need to group with Toolshed to do it!”

Anomaly let out a scream of frustration and roundhouse kicked a tentacle away from him.

“THIS IS _ABSOLUTELY_ NOT A CLASS 5!” He groaned.

“GET DOWN!!” Shouted a voice that was not his Informant.

“Wait, what?”

Kyle’s suddenly giddy voice filled his comm.

“Drop you drama queen!”

There was an extremely loud whirring sound and Anomaly dropped to the ground without a second thought as two enormous drill heads barreled through the monster's head and chest -- right where he had been standing.

“Hhhhho-ly _FUCK_!!” He said, a grin splitting up his face as the monster's eyes rolled back and he tipped forward into the building.

Oh fuck, it was tipping forward into the building.

Anomaly yelped and fell into the now collapsing building and used time to pull himself back to where he previously was, before teleporting to temporarily stable ground and taking a flying leap off of the building.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” Kyle shrieked in his ear as Anomaly began free falling through the air, towards another rooftop.

As he got closer to the other roof, it became startlingly apparent that he was going to miss it, panic filled his chest and he realized he could not pull himself to his previous position because the other building no longer _existed_.

Then a hand shot out and caught him by the wrist.

Anomaly crashed into the side of the building, wind knocked out of him but blessedly _alive_ , and he tilted his head up to look at his savior.

Toolshed looked back at him and gave him a lopsided smile, metal hastily put around his arm and shoulder so he didn’t dislocate it saving Anomaly from his death.

“I officially owe you a life debt.” Anomaly snarked.

Toolshed snorted.

“We can talk about that when you’re not hanging off of the side of a building.” He replied, holding out his remaining hand for the other teen to grab onto, and helped him up and onto the rooftop.

As Anomaly collapsed gratefully onto the sturdy and real ground, he let out a pained hiss as he started to feel an ominous weight begin around his chest.

“Oh shit, No- Anomaly, are you okay?” Toolshed asked as the boy curled in on himself.

A flash of blue caught his eye and he pulled Anomaly’s wrist towards him, concern turning into shock as he watched the familiar blue barcode with numbers underneath reading **75:12:4:256:798** decrease rapidly before stopping at **68:5:8:147:309**.

“What the _fuck_?” He said breathlessly, shaking the still wheezing teen’s wrist. “What the fuck do these numbers mean?!”

“They’re my years of life.” Anomaly said weakly, not having the energy to protest the unwanted touch. “Time powers aren’t _free_ , mine draw on my own remaining time to fuel them as well as a _lot_ of energy -- my metabolism is ridiculously high because of it.”

Toolshed let out a sound of disbelief before he plopped to the ground besides Anomaly.

“That’s- thats fucking heavy dude.”

Anomaly snorted.

“Every living thing has a barcode Toolshed.” He said, sitting up and poking him in the chest, a faint yellow light emitting suddenly from underneath his shirt. “I have one more aspect of my time manipulation that only the higher ups, and now you, know about.”

“... what is it?”

Anomaly pulled his comm out of his ear and turned it off, reaching up to do the same to Toolshed’s before he tapped his palm once, twice and drew what looked like a small scanner attached to a long cord that ended in an another scanner out.

Then he attached it to the barcode on his wrist and the blue light as well as his own yellow one turned bright _red_.

“I can steal time from other living things and keep myself alive forever, I can stop aging at any time because of it and, you wanna know the worst part?”

Toolshed paled as Anomaly drew close to his ear and whispered.

“ _I can’t ever die, like a parasite, I will feed upon the lives of others until there’s no one left to sustain me~_ ”

—

“Wanna get coffee?” Was not what Noel expected Stan to say to him the morning after he revealed his secret to him.

Nonetheless, he raised an eyebrow, held out a finger and pulled his phone out of his pocket, activating text to speak and typing out a:

“Fuck yes I do, I need energy like a junkie needs his fix.”

Stan snorted and tucked his hands in his pocket, motioning his head out the door and he and Noel walked side by side out of the living quarters in South Park Research and Mission Facility.

Informants, Scrappers and Instigators were required to live on base in case of emergencies, it was easier to call on them that way, and they’d made a compromise that allowed the inhabitants to visit town for school and leisure. It was dull, but the best they could get.

As the two walked, the tenseness that had been building up for weeks since Wendy’s reassignment to Stan finally disappeared, allowing Noel to feel comfortable once more in his friend’s presence.

“So,” He began, grinning when Stan jumped slightly at the sound of his voice, “why'd you invite me out? Any normal person would have run for the hills knowing what you do.”

Stan shrugged.

“Noel, we’ve known each other for nearly a decade, we may not be the most talkative of friends but I still consider you my friend. I’m not gonna abandon you just because you can eat my soul.”

“What?! Your _soul_?! What use would I have for your soul?!” He exclaimed, “I said I could steal your _time_ not eat your fucking _soul_!!”

Stan let out a laugh and shook his head.

“I know you idiot, I’m just messing with you.”

“You haven’t changed a bit Marsh, not one fucking bit.”

The pair walked in silence as they arrived into town, Noel made a beeline for Tweak Bros. Coffeehouse, not because their coffee tasted better, but because Mr and Mrs. Tweak never batted an eyelash when Noel ordered his usual.

Course it was just his luck that it was Tweek working today and not his parents.

“Hey Tweekers!” Noel chirped as he and Stan walked into the coffeehouse, the scent of coffee and the blast of warm air made him hum in contentment.

“Oh - _ngh!_ \- Hey Noel!” Tweek said, “what can I get you?”

“Why are you still working here Tweek? I never see you on base, besides, we make way more money taking mission.” Stan said, his eyes on the menu.

“Ah, w-well, my parents say I have to help out with - _ah_!- the store, powers be damned.”

Noel and Stan shot him twin disbelieving looks.

“Your parents are going against the _government_?” Stan asked.

“What scumbags!” Noel scoffed.

“I-I try not to think about it, Craig comes by every day so it’s not all bad…”

Noel smiled, “so you two are still going strong?”

“Yeah! It’s great, he makes me happy.” Tweek said, ducking his head slightly. “Now - _ack_! - what can I get you?”

“Uh, salted caramel mocha, 16 ounce for me, what do you want?” Stan said, looking at Noel and pulling out his wallet.

“How much to fill a 20 ounce cup with espresso?” Noel asked, face blank.

“I-I’m sorry, _what_?!” Tweak squawked.

“How much to fill a cup with only espresso.”

“Uh well, I’d have to manually input that into the system since we don’t have a, uh, button for 20 ounces of espresso…”

“Price is the furthest thing from my mind right now.”

“ _Ack_! I, Noel are you okay?” Tweek asked, growing concern and horror showing on his face.

“How much would it be?”

“ _Dude_.” Stan’s fearful awe sounded from Noel’s right, though his gaze was fixed on Tweek.

“Uh, 7.65, but Noel, I - _ah_! - should warn you, the shots get _really_ bitter if you let them sit an-”

“Taste means nothing to me.”

Tweek's eyes widened astronomically and he coughed, stuttering out the combined total.

“Wait, I know Harbucks has “Add Energy” packets, do you guys have those?” Noel asked

By this point even Stan was staring at Noel in abject _horror_.

“Uh, yes.”

“How many can you legally add?”

“F-for health reasons we shouldn’t add more than one.”

“Give me five.”

“ _WHAT_?!” That was Tweek and Stan, and Noel rolled his eyes.

“Fine, one.”

Tweek hiccuped and shook his head, tapping something on his screen.

“Total is $13.14.” He whispered, before turning to make Stan’s drink and the unholy elixir that Noel asked for.

Stan pulled Noel aside and looked him dead in the eyes.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

Noel snorted and let out a slightly hysterical laugh.

“I’m fine, I _told_ you that I need a lot of energy to function through the day.” He said, crossing his arms. “I eat a lot, and drink an unholy amount of energy drinks.”

Stan groaned and put his head in his hands, muttering something under his breath which made Noel laugh harder.

Eventually Tweek called out their order, he handed them their drinks, eyeing Noel as the teen walked over to the sugar station and added a splash of cream.

Then he held the cup up towards Tweek and slammed the entire thing.

“ _DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK?!_ ” His friends shouted.

“Tastes like hell.” Noel chirped, licking his lips and tossing the cup away in the trash, “c’mon Stan, you still want to talk to me right?”

As Noel walked out of the store, Tweek snagged Stan by the arm.

“Are we sure Noel didn’t - _gah!_ -turn into some sort of eldritch horror?!” He demanded.

Stan stared at the boy who was tapping his foot impatiently outside the store, looking perfectly normal, as if he hadn't just downed a monster of a drink.

“I’m starting to have some doubts too, Tweek.” He said, nodding to the twitching teen before leaving the store to join his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little silly at the end there, but sometimes we need a little bit of heaven before the hell.
> 
> The coffee bit was based on a text post I saw on tumblr.


	8. How NOT to Seduce your Crush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of times autocorrect turned Kenny into Lenny was absurd and every time it happened I went ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) every time it happened.

Though Noel left with Stan, he came back to the facility alone. It was nearing the end of the school day for everyone else, but Instigators and Informants who had fought the night before were given the choice to skip school for the day or go anyway.

Noel and Stan had chosen to stay home, though Noel didn’t have so much of a choice considering he had been injured and his muscles hurt like someone had taken a bat to him.

Which to be fair, was exactly what happened.

Wendy and Kyle had gone to school, and from what he’d heard, Nichole and Red’s Scrapper team were the ones out cleaning up their mess.

As he limped into the facility, hissing slightly as the gauze on his leg rubbed ever so slightly against the ground meat that remained of his leg (it was a _much_ more severe skid than he’d originally thought and he never, never, wanted to watch that much gravel being pulled out of his flesh again) he became very aware that he wasn’t entirely alone.

“Well, well, _well_.” He purred, his casual, flirty demeanor being ruined by how he winced when he walked, “Kenny McCormick, as I live and breathe.”

It’s been nine goddamn years and Noel _still_ wasn’t over Kenny fucking McCormick. Every time he thought he was no longer head over heels for the tall blonde, he would save an orphanage or do a backflip off of a roof or, heaven help Noel’s heart, _lift up a rogue Instigator by the throat_ , and Noel would be dragged right back in.

Still, Kenny continued to be one of his best friends, with the girls (yes all of them) taking the top spot.

“Hey Noel.” Kenny said, waving to him and giving him that _goddamn_ smile that was as bright as the sun and did _things_ to his heart.

Wow, he had it bad.

“I’ve never known you to be one to ditch, you’re always talking about having to be a good example since the entirety of South Park knows who Mysterion is.” He teased, crossing his arms as he stopped in front of the taller blonde. “Did you get _taller_? I swear I have to start craning my neck to look at you.”

Kenny laughed and _honestly_ , his heart needed to _chill_ with the fluttering, this was getting ridiculous.

“Personally I’m convinced _you’re_ the one who’s shrinkin’ Elle.” He said, moving to Noel’s side and draping an arm over his shoulder, “I was given the option to stay here today because of my work in Idaho yesterday, I decided to take the opportunity because I wanted to check on Karen.”

Despite trying to fight a vicious blush from the sudden close contact, Noel’s interest was quickly perked, he hadn’t seen Karen in _months_.

“Would you mind if I came with you? I’d like to see Karen too, she was always such a headstrong girl.” He asked, turning his head to look up at Kenny.

“You sure? I heard you got hit pretty bad on the excursion last night.” He said, brow furrowing.

Noel waved him off, attempting to flex and _immediately_ regretting it as the acid burns on his arms shrieked their protest.

“Come on now, it’s gonna take a lot more than acid burns to keep this hero down!” He said, jumping when Kenny grabbed his face.

“ _Acid burns_?! No one said anythin’ about acid burns! What other injuries did you sustain?” He demanded.

“Uhhh,” Noel said intelligently, shaking his head the best he could, “lotta bruises, the thing threw me around a rag doll and I also slammed into a building, but that one was on _me_. Oh, I skidded across a rooftop and turned my leg into mince meat.”

“God _dammit_ Noel,” Kenny said, pulling the smaller boy into a hug, much to his simultaneous joy and despair. “You have to be more careful, you’re not immortal like I am.”

‘ _Boy, you have **no** idea_.’ Noel thought, taking advantage of the moment and hugging Kenny tightly, burying his face in the taller teen’s ratty old parka and breathing in the scent of the facilities store brand laundry detergent.

“Something tells me you’re going to bring Karen back here for a decent meal, a shower and a change of clothes.” He said, pulling his head upwards to eye Kenny suspiciously.

“You’d be correct.” Kenny said with a cackle, pulling away from Noel and ruffling his hair.

“HEY! Come _on_ , you fucker! It takes me forever to tame this rats nest!”

Noel took a swipe at Kenny, who nimbly twirled out of the way and ran towards the entrance of the facility, Noel following close behind, pain temporarily forgotten, their laughter and footfalls ringing through the empty hanger.

—————

It wasn’t uncommon to hear the McCormicks screaming at each other as you neared their house, in fact, one could say it was a daily occurrence.

That didn’t make it any _better_ or less scarring for anyone who ended up on the wrong side of the tracks.

It also never failed to make Kenny angry.

Noel looked at Kenny in concern as they stood outside the house, there was a darkness in the taller teen’s face as he stared at the door. The fighting was _so_ loud and _so_ obscene that Noel didn’t feel anything but worry for both Kenny and Karen.

Oh, poor Karen, she had to be in there while they screamed at each other like that.

“Elle.”

Noel jumped and turned to Kenny, coughing slightly and pulling his hands up, this reminded him too much of when his own parents fought and, _god_ , when Cartman had him kill his _father_ , to be at all comfortable enough to talk.

Still, Kenny knew the ASL alphabet so they could at least communicate a little.

“Yes?”

“I need you to go ‘round back and sneak Karen outta the house, I’m goin’ in there and distractin’ em, shouldn’t be too hard.”

Noel bit his lip and nodded.

“I’ll do my best.”

Kenny gave him one nod and Noel ducked around the house, fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears to avoid listening to the usually kind voice he knew so well raise as the older boy burst into his own house.

He peeked inside each of the rooms, recognizing one as Kenny’s old room, familiar worn posters of attractive women in bikinis staring back at him, a room trapped in eternal stasis as it still looked exactly how Kenny left it.

The other room had a familiar young woman tucked in the corner, her shoulders moving erratically as she sobbed.

‘ _Oh Karen…_ ’ Noel thought to himself, counting to three and bringing his hand up to the window and knocking quickly on the glass.

Karen’s head shot up from her knees the second the sound reached her and scrambled to her knees when Noel waved and made an unlocking motion.

Karen hurried to the window and pushed it open, looking at Noel, who was still crouched next to the house to avoid being seen.

“What’re you doin’ here Noel?” She asked, her voice quiet as she looked back towards the door in terror, there was a bruise on her face and for a second Noel saw red.

Noel had been teaching Karen sign language when the government had built the facilities and demanded that all those (that they knew of) with special powers move in.

It didn’t do much to Noel and his parents relationship, considering they visited each other whenever possible and had family outings more often than not.

It had completely destroyed the McCormick family (as well as Randy and Stan’s relationship and the Stotch family) relations though. Kenny’s mom couldn’t get over the fact that another one of her children was leaving her for a supposedly better life. She didn’t hear from Kevin anymore and didn’t want the same from Kenny.

His dad was an entirely different story.

Noel didn’t know what happened, to this day Kenny wouldn’t tell him what occurred. All Noel knew is that the night he was due to move into the facility, Kenny had shown up on his doorstep.

This had happened maybe… 4 months after the first Breach. Noel remembers that day almost as well as he remembers Breaching Day. It was two weeks before Christmas and Noel had been crying for days about having to leave his parents and trying to put off his move until the last possible moment, which had made him one of the last people to move into the facility.

Coincidentally so was Kenny, though Kenny didn’t _choose_ to move in so late, he had been making sure Karen was safe enough without him being at his house. He’d shown up on Noel’s doorstep carrying a singular backpack with everything he owned in it and sporting a split lip and a black eye.

When asked, Kenny told Noel not to worry about it and the two ended up in the facility together. To this day they still had rooms parallel to one another.

But Kenny had more intense missions due to his rank, the days Noel could see him were few and far in between.

Karen snapped her fingers in front of Noel’s face and he jumped, _shit_ , he spaced out.

“ _Noel_.” She hissed, looking back towards the door.

Noel made a writing motion and she quickly got him some paper and a pencil.

“Get your stuff together and then come out of the window, Kenny and I are getting you out of here.” He wrote, showing her the paper and then ducking out of sight.

There was a lot of shuffling and footfalls over the sound of screaming and, was that a _bottle_ he just heard shatter?

Noel was so focused on listening to Kenny and hoping he was okay that he didn’t notice when Karen climbed out the window and crouched next to him, poking him in the shoulder and making him jump, only barely stifling his automatic reaction to lash out at whatever startled him.

He made a _follow me_ motion with his hand and the two ran until they made it across the train tracks.

Then Noel lifted his hand up and pointed at the ground.

“Wait here?” Karen asked, frowning when Noel nodded. “Where’re you goin’?”

Noel made the same motion again and then used his powers to pull himself back to where he had been hiding, straightening himself up and brushing dirt off of his person.

He walked calmly to the McCormicks front door and knocked three times, then he crossed his arms and waited.

A silence descended upon the residence almost immediately, then the door was wrenched open and a _very_ pissed off Stuart stood in front of him.

“Oh great, it’s you.” He spat, “What’d ya want?”

Noel raised a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow, and quickly signed out the words: “I’m looking for Kenny. Have you seen him? We need him back at the base” despite knowing Kenny’s parents had no knowledge of sign language.

“What? God you’ve always been difficult! Speak English you retard!”

Noel rolled his eyes and signed out: “I’m _mute_ , not _mentally handicapped_ you fucking waste of air.”

Now, he expected a lot of things from Kenny’s drunk dad, he expected to be yelled at, for more profanities to be yelled at him, hell, he even expected the door to be slammed in his face. This was all to distract Stuart so Kenny could duck out after all.

What he _didn’t_ expect, was for the collar of his blue track jacket to be grabbed and for him to be lifted right off of his feet.

He immediately grabbed onto Stuart’s hands, a strangled noise of surprise leaving him as he was brought to the older man's eye level, the stench of booze making his nose crinkle.

“Say somethin’.” Stuart demanded, shaking Noel slightly.

“Put. Him. Down.” Came Kenny’s voice, and if it were any other situation, Noel would have swooned at how pissed he looked.

“Not till he says somethin’ like a normal human being!”

_Well_ , if _that’s_ all it took.

A blue band slowly entwined around Noel’s neck, and once the effects of it took hold he cleared his throat.

“Eat shit and die.” He deadpanned, looking at Stuart right in the eyes.

“Why you-!”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off as Noel slammed his head into Stuart’s forehead, forcing the man to drop him and the next thing he knew, someone was grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

“Where’s Karen?” Kenny asked, voice concerned.

“Left her near the Broflovskis, on the other side of the tracks.” Noel murmured, dispelling the time that had gathered around his throat, he’d started to feel better the farther they got from the McCormicks anyway.

“Good.”

“Wh-”

Noel was cut off as Kenny pulled him into his second hug of the day, holding him tightly as though he might disappear.

“Don’t you ever do that again. What would I do if I lost you Elle?” Kenny said, burying his face in Noel’s fluffy black hair

“Uhh, drag me kicking and screaming back from Hell?” Noel asked, having to clear his voice from the sudden squeak that had covered it.

Kenny let out a breathless laugh and resumed tugging him along.

“Come on, let’s go get Karen.”

——-

For first time in his life, Noel had to actually _look_ at a clock to get the time, instead of just looking at his own wrist or knowing instinctively what it was.

Not from lack of _trying_ mind you, but he was still wiped from last night, and having used two aspects of his powers that took up a _lot_ of energy meant he really didn’t have much more to spare.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, it’s only 3:00?!” Noel said with a groan, looking away from the clock and missing how Kenny turned away from Karen to raise an eyebrow at him.

“You’re lookin’ at clocks now Elle? That’s a new one.” He said, voice teasing as he placed his elbow on Noel’s head.

“Hardy fucking har asshole, I’m goddamn _exhausted_ right now, I’ve been using my powers too much and I’m a time check away from glitching into Time itself, ya know, like Tracer from Overwatch.” He slurred, cursing mentally as he could _physically_ feel the exhaustion sinking its claws into him.

“Can... can that actually happen?” Karen asked, looking between her brother and Noel in concern.

“Probably not, but that’s what it feels like.” Noel mumbled, leaning heavily on Kenny, his eyes slowly fluttering closed.

Karen shot Kenny a very smug look and Kenny returned it with a glare, which made the 15 year old snicker.

“C’mon Elle, let's get ya to your room.” Kenny said, placing a hand on his back to try and lead him forward.

Noel made an audible noise of protest and dug his heels weakly into the polished tile.

“Fffffuck that, fuck walking, carry me. You owe me your _life_ McCormick, I saved your sister _and_ you!!” He said, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes. “I demand _blood_.”

“Yeah Ken.” Karen said, her voice becoming ever so smug, “you should carry him.”

Kenny groaned but did in fact comply, scooping Noel into his arms and striding towards his room, pointedly ignoring how Karen’s face was starting to look strikingly like that picture of the cat being the threatened with a knife.

“You both are insufferable.” He said with a huff.

“You love me.” Noel murmured, his voice severely muffled by how he had his face buried in Kenny’s parka.

Karen let out a very creepy laugh and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “ _you have no idea_.”

“Karen, quit laughin’ and open this door please.” Kenny said, jerking his head to the familiar, blue clock cog decorated door.

He rolled his eyes when Karen saluted him and pushed the door open, allowing Kenny to walk in and set a very asleep Noel down on his bed.

“Jeez, how much energy do you need?” Kenny murmured.

Noel let out a soft, breathy sound and rolled onto his side, a smile pulling up the sides of his sleeping face and Kenny couldn’t help but brush a stray piece of hair out of his face.

“You really should just _tell_ him instead of bein’ creepy like this, Ken.” Karen said from her leaning position against the door.

Kenny blinked and shook his head, shooing Karen out as he closed the door.

“He deserves better than me Karen.”

Karen scoffed, rolling her eyes and moving across the hall to her brother’s room.

”You’re literally the only one who thinks that.” She said, holding the door open.

Kenny rolled his eyes and moved towards his own room, setting his hand on her head when he got close enough.

”Whoever raised you needs a stern talkin’ to.” He said, flinching backwards when Karen jabbed him in the stomach.

”That’d be you McCormick.” She said, trying to jab her brother again with one hand and closing the door with the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t resist guys. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	9. Temporary Standstill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How to make a cup of fan fiction:
> 
> Place your ground plot into a sieve and pour hot water over it.
> 
> Pour the plot into a writers head mug
> 
> Add two lumps of fluff and a splash of filler
> 
> Then drink!

When Wendy _finally_ got back to the facility, nearly two hours after school had let out (her own fault really, she shouldn’t have signed up for clubs _and_ tried student council at the same time), she made a beeline for the lounge room, fully expecting a certain _someone_ to have made some fucked up version of coffee.

Sure enough, a very tired looking Noel (was his hair _sticking_ up? That was new) leaned heavily against a wall, a half eaten tray of cupcakes next to him. He was nursing a cup of coffee and in the process of stuffing what seemed like his (judging by the wrappers) 10th cupcake into his mouth.

“You look like hell.” Wendy commented, smirking when all she got was a very determined middle finger.

Wendy walked up to the pot of coffee sitting innocently in its maker and grabbed a mug and then the pot.

It was when she was pouring the coffee into the mug that she realized there was something _very_ wrong with it. Thick black sludge _oozed_ into the mug and Wendy made a face.

“Ugh! Who made this coffee?!” She demanded.

“Oh that was me.” Noel said, pulling his cup from his mouth, revealing that it was stained honest to god black.

“You always make it so strong!”

Noel snorted.

“Hah, yeah.” Then he pointed at it, “don’t let Tweek get ahold of that, I fear it will stop his poor humming bird heart and then Craig will fry me with his spooky eye lasers he continues to deny having.” 

Wendy raised an eyebrow.

“You’re significantly more talkative now.” She smiled, “does it have something to do with how I saw Karen and Kenny in the mess hall while coming here?”

Noel blushed and Wendy knew she got it in one. 

“Shut the fuck up.” He mumbled, making Wendy crow. 

“I knew it!! What did you two do?! Tell me everything.” She gasped, grabbing at Noel’s wrist and pulling him towards the exit, “wait, let’s go get Bebe!”

“Oh my god Wens, it’s not that important.” Noel said, desperately grabbing another cupcake.

“ _Sure_ it isn’t, and i'm not student body president.”

Wendy continued to drag Noel towards Lab 4, ignoring his bitching, whining and threats of extreme bodily harm.

“You're making me uncomfortaaabllleeeee.” He whined, trying to dig his heels in and failing miserably against Wendy’s gossip fueled strength. 

“No I’m not, if I were you’d be going quiet and I’d leave you alone.” Wendy replied matter-of-factly. 

“Nnnothing haaaaappeeenedd.”

“Quit bitching, you did this to yourself when you told us about your crush all those years ago.” 

Noel let out a very prolonged groan and flopped to the ground, making Wendy stop and look at him. 

“You _do_ know I’ll just drag your dead weight to the lab no matter what you do and you’ll get chewed out by the doctors for getting more injuries when you didn’t even leave the facility.”

Noel sat up. 

“How do _you_ know I got chewed out?” He asked, narrowing her eyes at her.

“I hacked your comm frequency? Duh?” 

He groaned again and threw himself to the ground. 

“I’m hurt Wendy, why aren’t you nicer to me?” 

“Because I’m your best friend and you literally just told me you spent the day with your _crush of nine years._ ”

Noel was quiet for a long time, and Wendy feared that maybe she _had_ made him uncomfortable enough to be unable to talk, then he got up and pointed at her. 

“I want three Baconators from Wendy’s, 5 of their chilli fries and two Frostys.” He said in a no nonsense tone. 

Wendy grinned.

 “Deal.” 

Noel dropped into an overdramatic bow and motioned extravagantly towards the hallway. 

“Lead the way Lady Testaburger.” 

She laughed and pulled a small curtsy, humoring him for the time being.

“Happily, Lord Lewis.”

“Ugh, my last name is so boring compared to everyone else’s.”

She rolled her eyes and the two began the much more normal trip to Lab 4, chatting casually about what Noel missed in school today, Wendy’s many club activities and her unwavering reign as student body president. 

“Aw man.” Noel said, frowning.

“What’s up?” Wendy asked, concern spiking in her chest at the sudden mood shift. 

“You made me drop my cupcake.” 

She stared at him in disbelief before shoving him through the door into the laboratory, following him in and pulling him into a headlock, rubbing her knuckles against his head, much to Noel’s displeasure. 

“Oh, hey guys…” came Bebe’s suspiciously guilty voice.

“Please don’t freak out.” Said Clyde.

Wendy and Noel slowly looked up, not getting out of the position she had put them and their eyes widened.

There, jumping around, climbing on things and chewing on everything it could get it’s hands on, was the hatched contents of the egg.

——

“What the _fuck_ was the one goddamn thing I told you not to do?!” Noel yelled, trying to catch the baby demon running around. “I told you: Don’t. Hatch. The. Egg.”

“How did you two even _do_ this in a _day_?!” Wendy demanded.

“Lewis don’t you fucking hurt Kody!!” Clyde called, chasing after Noel. 

“ _YOU NAMED IT?!_ ” He screeched.

“Wendy, it wasn’t anything we did, after the stasis was placed and you two ran off to complete that mission, we were testing the contents of the inside of the shell to see what we could get out of it when it started to shake.” Bebe explained. 

There was a very loud “ _FUCK_ ” from behind Bebe and Wendy watched the demon spawn bounce off of Noel’s head and into Clyde’s waiting arms, crawling into his lab coat.

“I got him Bebe!” Clyde said hurrying over to the blonde girl, eyeing Noel who had resumed just laying on the floor.

“He’s not hurt is he?” Bebe asked, turning to look at the demon and jumping when Wendy snapped multiple times.

“Focus! Bebe, what happened?” She asked.

Bebe sighed.

“The egg started to shake and crack, we got really worried that it was going to explode, I got our team together and we were ready to contain the explosion when it hatched, and Kody popped out.” She explained, “he saw me and Clyde first and I guess imprinted on us, he won’t be around anyone else without one of us being with him.”

“How did he hatch?! I thought you pulled him out of a dead demon?” Noel asked, jumping up from the floor.

“Our theory is that he was already due to hatch and when we pulled him out of his mother he went into an artificial stasis until the ideal conditions were met.” Clyde said. 

“What were the conditions?” Wendy asked. 

“A warm incubator and strong magic to consume in order to be born.” He said.

Noel groaned.

“I hate it, I hate it but it makes sense.” He mumbled.

“What makes you say that Noa?” Wendy asked. 

“First of all, the egg had a _very_ long timeline.” Noel began, raising one of his fingers, “remember that time you guys sent me to the abortion clinic to see which of your girlfriends was a backstabbing whore?”

Bebe and Wendy nodded sagely. 

“Well, I’ve always been able to see the timelines of everyone, humans or otherwise, sometimes they appear around their head, like in Death Note, or sometimes I just _know._ ”

“That’s really unnerving.” Bebe said.

“You have no idea. Anyway, fetus’s have one of two different timelines. Either they will have a very short timeline, I’m talking months or even days, meaning they’re not going to live long. Be it abortion or they’re just not meant to go to term, they’ll have short times, but ones that are meant to _survive_ , they have timelines that span by _years_. I’m talking upwards of 80 years.”

“Woah.” Clyde said, looking curious, “what’s my time like?”

“You have 24 hours.” Noel deadpanned, ignoring Clyde’s terrified scream, “when you sent me to the abortion clinic, all of the fetuses had very short timelines, because they were all due to be terminated that day, however when I saw this egg yesterday morning, I noticed it had a very, _very_ long timeline.”

Bebe frowned.

“Why didn’t you tell us that? We wouldn’t have asked you to put a stasis on it if we knew.” She said.

“Because you _did_ ask me to put a stasis on it.” Noel held up a hand, “timelines react sensitively to temporal interference, if you were forcefully trapped in a time loop where at the end of 24 hours you were killed and the loop restarted, your time would not show the 74 years you're supposed to have, it would only show the 24 hours you had to live before resetting along with the loop. 

“And if you broke the loop it would break the effect it had on your timeline.” Noel finished.

“So you thought that the reason the egg had so much time was because you were about to place it in a stasis, and that it’s timeline was merely reflecting that.” Wendy said.

“Exactly! And it makes sense that it was a resetting stasis that caused it to hatch, there is a lot of power that goes into forcing a loop that can be manipulated by someone that’s not the caster.” Noel said.

“Is _that_ why you’re so tired today?” Wendy asked, putting her hand on her hips, “I _knew_ you weren’t tired by how much you used your powers yesterday! You were barely using!”

 “That’s said and done Wens, it’s fine.”

 “Like hell it is! You fucked up your leg! You got hit by _acid_!”

 “ _Acid_?!” Bebe demanded, whirling around to look at Noel, “what kind of fucking class 5 were you fighting?!” 

“I’m almost _certain_ that whatever we were fighting was a class 3 and that the directors _knew_ that it was a class 3, but Tweek wasn’t available that day so they just said it was a class 5 and gave it to me and Stan.”

“Fucking _assholes_ !!” Bebe snapped, slamming her hand on the table, “why do they keep doing that?! They _know_ you guys don’t care about class so long as you can do your jobs, why do they keep _lying_?!”

 “I think the Breaches are getting worse. That’s my theory at least, too many higher level Breaches and not enough higher level people to deal with them. Better to trick lower level Instigators into dealing with it so they can climb in rank and deal with them properly.” Noel mused. 

“So you think Stan could be getting a raise?” Wendy asked.

“I think he’ll definitely start doing better work now that Kyle’s his Informant again and you’re mine.” 

Bebe and Wendy shouted in excitement, crowding around Noel.

 “You managed to convince him?!” Wendy asked.

“Yeah! We had a conversation about it this morning -- hey wait! You’re not trying to distract me from the _literal demon baby_ running around are you?!”

Bebe had the decency to look sheepish and Wendy recoiled with a look of betrayal.

“Bebe how _could_ you use me like that.” She asked, fake disbelief in her voice.

 “I promise the both of you, we have clearance to keep him alive. The higher ups want us to raise him to see if there’s a way he can Breach _back_ to his homeland, they’re hoping we can end the invasions once and for all.” Bebe explained.

 Noel and Wendy shared a look before Noel groaned and put his hand over his eyes.

“This literally goes against everything they stand for but you know what? Fuck it. I want godfather privileges, we’re raising this thing in the most _loving family ever_.”

“If Noel gets to be the godfather I want to be the godmother!” Wendy said, looking around Bebe to peer at Clyde, who had sat Kody on the examination table and was taking his vitals.

“I mean, sure? We don’t know if he can understand us!” Bebe said.

“How do you know it’s _gender_ then?” Noel asked.

“Oh, prior examination of different sexes of its species, he has the same internal functions as the males in his demon group.”

“ _Wonderful._ ” Noel said, turning on his heel. “Well, we’ll be back to bond with our godchild at a later date, Wendy owes me greasy fast food.” 

“Oh speaking of fast food, that reminds me about our deal.” Wendy said, lashing her hand out and catching Noel by the collar. “Bebe, guess who just spent the _afternoon_ with Kenny McCormick.”

Bebe let out a gasp and turned gleeful eyes onto Noel, who was officially looking for an easy way out.

“ _No_.” She whispered.

“ _Yes.”_ Wendy whispered back.

The two girls giggled back and forth and Noel got the distinct feeling that he was about to be devoured entirely.

Then Bebe and Wendy grabbed him and dragged him to an unoccupied chair and sat him down. 

“Tell us _everything,_ Lewis.” Bebe demanded.

 ——

After an _extremely_ long conversation about what had happened, which ended with the girls texting the group chat and _everyone_ video chatting to get the details, Noel _finally_ had his horrible Wendy’s meal.

And he also had designs for wedding invitations and the colors for said wedding (cream and sky blue, with a pale honey for accents, Noel thought it was quite nice). 

“So who’s gonna be your best man?” Wendy asked, popping a french fry into her mouth, thoughtful.

“First of all, it was one outing, chill out,” Noel began, glowering when Wendy rolled her eyes, “second, you, always you. Duh.”

“Good choice.”

“You say that, but would you have allowed me to pick _anyone_ else?”

“Pft, god no, I’d kill whatever bitch you chose that wasn’t me.”

“And _that_ is exactly why you’re _horrifying_ Wendy Testaburger.”

Wendy just smiled at him and pushed her shoulder up slightly, making Noel shudder and resign to just eating his burger(s).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of heaven before the hell~


	10. Time is Relative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ive never liked Stephen Stotch
> 
> Edit: you’ll notice the chapters have names now
> 
> Edit 2: thanks to the new episode I’ve changed the Heidi scene, thank god man, I love Heidi and it hurt me to see her the way she was

Three months passed without much incident. Besides the occasional dispatch missions and school, life in South Park fell into the same boring existence that one would expect from a small town.

It was a chilly day in mid November, the 15th.

Noel, Wendy, Bebe, Red, Nichole and Heidi were walking back to the facility after clubs had finally gotten out and Noel was proudly showing off the designs he had started creating for Home Ec’s final project.

“I still can’t believe that teacher let you stay in her class.” Wendy said, flipping through Noel’s sketch book.

“Seriously, she was _super_ awful to Kenny when we were in elementary school, what made her change her mind?” Bebe asked, making a soft sound and pointing at a dress in the sketchbook. “Make me this one.”

“Okay, rude?” Noel said, laughing when Bebe pushed him, “also, I don’t talk in her class at _all_ , she thinks that the only thing I _could_ be is a trophy husband, jokes on that bitch though, I’m gonna be a better fashion designer than Gucci.”

“When you make it big, you _better_ send us free outfits, or we’re coming for you Noa.” Nichole said, leaning over Wendy’s shoulder.

Most of the girls voiced their agreement, with the exception of Heidi.

Heidi lagged behind the rest of the group and was very quiet, it seemed like she was trying to make the trek back to the facility last ages.

“Heidi, is everything okay?” Red asked, turning to look at her friend in concern.

This caught the attention of the rest of the group and they all stopped to look at Heidi, who waved them off.

“I’m fine guys! Honest!” She said with a smile, “I’m just not in any hurry to get to the facility, I’d prefer not to spend more time with Cartman than I need to.”

“You’re not dating him anymore right? Why do they make you stay as his Informant?” Wendy asked, wrapping an arm around Heidi’s shoulder and leading her to the group again.

“Oh simple, he still has a gut reaction to passive aggressively roll his eyes and blow me off whenever I talk.” Heidi said, laughing, “a quiet Eric Cartman is a successful mission I can tell you that much!”

“Does he even _listen_ to you Heidi?” Noel asked, tucking his sketchbook into his backpack.

“ _God_ no, he does whatever he wants or whatever he thinks looks cool, it works fine with class 5-8 enemies, but I dread to think what would happen if he went up against anything higher than that, they get dangerous don’t they?”

“Oh absolutely, they’re more special the higher up the class rank they are.” Nichole said.

“For sure, I hate the ones with Acid the most, those fuckers _burn_ if you cut them wrong.” Bebe chirped.

“I hear that! And I have the scars to prove it!” Noel said, bursting into laughter.

The group hurried along, laughing with one another as they entered the facility

Only to walk into complete pandemonium.

Scientists and researchers were running about, talking to one another and yelling loudly, responding to the higher ups who were belting out orders.

“All Instigators and Informant teams report to The Round Room immediately!” One of them screeched.

“Scrapper team heads Red and Bebe please report to Lab 4.” Another snapped.

The group look at each other in terror and Bebe grabbed Nichole and Red’s hands.

“We have to check on Kody!!” She said frantically, barely stuttering out a goodbye before she tugged them all away.

Wendy, Noel and Heidi shared a look of worry and ran towards the designated meeting room.

—-

When they arrived they found the rest of their friends and acquaintances chattering nervously to one another as they sat around the large table.

Noel and Wendy made a beeline to the two open seats next to Stan and Kyle.

“What’s going on?” Wendy asked as Noel tried to clear his throat.

“We have no idea, an hour after we got back from school, an alarm started blaring and were all ordered back here, it’s been pandemonium trying to find those of us that were still out.” Kyle said.

“Maybe they’re here to tell us a Jew can’t be a hero _Kahl.”_ Cartman sneered, barely acknowledging Heidi as he reluctantly took her seat next to him.

“Shut up fatass!”

Wendy turned to Noel as the two started arguing yet again.

“Are you doing okay Noa?” She asked.

Noel shook his head, clearing his throat again and throwing his hands up in the air.

“I’m way too worried now about what’s going on, can’t speak.” He signed, looking frustrated.

As Wendy opened her mouth to try and comfort Noel, the door flew open and the captain of the facility, Florence Golden, walked into the room.

“I’m sorry for pulling you all away from your weekend, but we have a high profile mission that we need all of you to be involved in.” She said.

The chattering between the congregated heroes began again and grew in noise as they all talked amongst themselves about what could possibly be so important that they needed them all to do it.

“Settle down!” Captain Golden snapped, nodding once in approval at how quickly they all quieted. “About three weeks ago we received a report from Salt Lake City in Utah. They had informed us that many of their young, budding Instigators were being kidnapped. Soon after their report we received one from Brooklyn, Florida, Los Angeles, Boulder, Portland and Quantico.

“At first, before the other reports came through, we thought this was an isolated incident and had urged Salt Lake to send veteran Instigators to find and recover the missing children, only to have them disappear too.

“This Monday we received a report from Denver saying that they were missing Instigators as well. That same Monday we, at this facility, demanded that all Instigators, Scrappers and Informants travel in large groups to avoid being singled out and taken.”

Captain Florence heaved a shaky sigh and placed her hands on the large meeting table, hanging her head in shame.

“Despite my efforts, we were unable to stop one of our own from being taken.” She whispered, and Noel felt his heart jump into his throat, “just 9 hours ago, when you all departed to school, Leopold “Butters” Stotch, codename: Professor Chaos, was taken from the streets, along with him, parents reported that some of their children, who had started developing powers, never made it home.

“We don’t know _what_ the people who took these children, _our_ children, want, but we shouldn’t give a _fuck_. This is personal now, I will be breaking you all into groups of four, two Instigator/Informant groups, with a ground team and a team hiding in the wings in case you are approached and need backup. I can’t stress this enough, there will be _no_ funny business on this mission, _no_ fighting and _no_ reckless moves, call in anything you find immediately.

“Mr’s. Marsh and Broflovski, you will be working with Mr’s. Valmer and Black, try and find clues to where our monsters may have taken Mr. Stotch.” She said, motioning towards the door and the aforementioned teams quickly hurried to their assignments, “don’t change into your costumes! We want to be discreet!”

She turned to the rest of the room.

“Continuing on. Mr. Cartman and Ms. Turner, you will be working with Mr’s. McCormick and Burch,” Golden began, holding her hand up when Eric began to complain, “do not try me today Cartman. Go, now.

“And finally, Mr. Lewis and Ms. Testaburger, you will work with Mr’s. Tucker and Tweak.”

As soon as the assignment was given, Noel was up on his feet and pulling Wendy out the door, grim determination on his face.

“S-so which of us will be the ground team?” Tweek asked as the team rushed out the door.

“Wendy and I will.” Noel signed, gently rubbing at his throat and taking deep breaths to try and calm himself down.

“What?” Tweek asked.

“He said that we will.” Wendy replied, looking over the case file they were given when they left. “It says here that Butters was last seen getting into a car near the church and was seen again being dragged into a different car near the City Wok, Stan’s group said they were searching the church and school area.”

“T-Timmy said that his group were going to be checking the neighborhoods - _Ah! -_ and C-Captain Golden’s group were going to be around the mall area.”

“That leaves us with Shi Tpa Town.” Craig deadpanned.

“Good.” Noel croaked, hissing slightly as he coughed to try and help the stiffness in his throat. “We can go to City Wok and talk to Mr. Lu Kim and see if he saw anything while working.”

“Are you sure you're up to it?” Craig asked, taking Tweek’s hand in his when Tweek’s shaking began getting worse. “You can’t talk very well right now dude.”

Noel shook his head.

“I’m fine.” He said, wincing as he sounded like he swallowed multiple frogs.

“You sound like you’re _literally_ dying.”

“Craig, Noel is the best choices for this.” Wendy said, “he’s still good friends with most, if not _all_ of the adults and store owners in South Park.”

Craig turned to stare at Noel.

“You mean to tell me, when you made friends with those people on social media you _actually made friends with them_?” He demand.

Noel just shrugged and nodded.

“Dude, _why_? The adults here are all fucking crazy!”

“It comes in handy.” He croaked, clearing his throat again, “technically speaking I could call on any of them for help at any time, they all owe me favors.”

Craig kind of leaned away from Noel at the information and Tweek screamed.

“So you’re like some kind of - _gah!_ \- mafia boss?!” He shrieked.

Noel grinned.

“Nah,” he said, clear as day. “I’m more like the _Devil_.”

Noel cackled as Craig began watching him warily, Tweek screamed again and Wendy let out a thousand year long sigh.

—-

Their investigation of Shi Tpa Town was going smoothly until they hit a bump in the road.

Well it was a less of a bump and more of a fucking _tree_.

Halfway into their interrogation of the store owners surrounding City Wok, Tweek got a call from his parents, who threatened that if he didn’t come back to work _that instant,_ Richard Tweak would go out, find the people who kidnapped Butters and sell Tweek to them.

Needless to say Tweek screamed for about 10 minutes straight, forcing Noel and Wendy to take out their comms or risk hearing damage.

“Guys, I’m sorry, I have to take Tweek back to the coffeehouse and convince them to let us do this.” Craig said, once he had calmed Tweek down from screaming to gentle whimpers.

“They shouldn’t have this much _sway_ in his life Tucker.” Noel ground out.

“You don’t think I don’t know that? I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for _years_ to get Tweek’s shit parents to leave him alone.” Craig snapped, “I’ve only _just recently_ convinced his parents to stop giving him _drugged_ coffee every time he so much as flinched!”

Noel let out a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.

“Remind me, once we get Butters back and we’re all _safe_.” He began, “to call in one of the _multiple_ favors the Tweaks owe me.”

Tweek screamed again, the sound muffled from where he was presumably hiding his face in Craig’s jacket.

“My parents owe you favors?! Oh _god_ , why?!” Tweek shrieked.

“Tweek. Tweek, Tweek, Tweek, _Tweek._ ” Noel cooed, his voice taking on a familiar honey like tone, “the only person who owes me more favors than _your_ parents is Randy Marsh.”

“ _Dude_.” Craig said in a warning tone.

“Look, the way this works is that I can get just about anything anywhere,” Noel said, nodding once to Morgan Freeman as the man continued on his way to his taco shop, “people ask me for a favor, I complete it and then they owe me a favor which I can call on at a later date, for less than or equal to the favor they asked of me.

“They also agree, that if they owe me more than one favor, I can cash them in together for one huge favor. Simple.” He finished.

Tweek and Craig were quiet for a minute while Noel blinked in confusion, wondering at what point the conversation got into what was considered “uncomfortable” by society’s standards.

“Well, I-I guess that’s not as b-bad as I thought.” Tweek said quietly, making Noel release a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Well, Tweek and I are going to go to his parents shop and convince them to leave Tweek the fuck alone.” Craig said, “we’ll be back in an hour, and let’s keep this between us please, I don’t need Tweek getting yelled at by Florence again.”

“Do what you have to, we'll call you if we need help.” Wendy said.

The couple voiced their agreement before their comms went dead in their entirety.

“C’mon Noa, let’s head back towards City Wok and ask Mr. Lu Kim if he got any physical description from the people who took Butters.” Wendy said.

“Let’s check alleys too, they may have dumped something in one of them.” Noel said, nodding to Wendy.

Once they’d asked Lu Kim every question they could think of concerning Butters and where he was or who had taken him and getting _nowhere_ , the pair sent their information (or lack thereof) to their AWOL partners and their superiors, telling them they’d resume checking alleys for now.

At some point during the search, Noel changed gears from being silent to ranting about Tweeks parents.

Wendy listened patiently as Noel ranted on and on, tapping him on the shoulder whenever he started getting too loud.

Eventually she spoke up.

“Not to make you think that I don’t trust Tweek explicitly, but he really _does_ shirk his responsibilities.” She said, holding her breath as she pushed aside another pile of trash in search of evidence.

“Yeah but that isn’t _his_ fault, his _parents_ are the scumbags who won’t leave Tweek alo- _oh._ ” Noel said, stopping suddenly and dropping the bag he was holding.

“Noel, I’ve told you a _hundred_ times since you started ranting, you _still_ aren’t allowed to kill the Tweaks.”

“No! Wendy! Parents are the key!!”

Wendy blinked in confusion.

“What?”

“Butters was seen getting into a car of his own volition right?” Noel began, scrabbling for the file he had in his bag. “It was _later_ that he escaped and was _dragged_ into a van.”

“Well yeah, that’s what witnesses say, we don’t _know_ that Butters wasn’t forced into the car.”

“But we _do_ know that! Butters’ lightning and shocks render cars and other electronic things useless, why would he just climb into a car when he was _surrounded_ by people?”

“He… He _wouldn’t_ , not without good reason.”

“Or if it was someone he trusted.” Noel said, waving his hands about excitedly as he talked, “think about it, who was the one person who was most bothered by Butters moving into the facility?”

“His…” Wendy gasped, “his _dad_!”

“Exactly!! His dad had been _so_ distraught when he found out most of the children in town were moving into the facility, he didn’t want Butters to leave! And he was always the one to drill certain rules into Butters’ head, such as the father is always right.”

“You don’t think..”

“That Stephen Stotch kidnapped his own son and helped kidnap others? Yes I really do.”

“ _Fuck_ , quick, tell everyone our theory.” Wendy said, spinning on her heel and pulling out one of her many phones.

“Way ahead of you!” Noel said, sending the message and getting one back from Captain Golden. “Captain says to go after him, let’s go!”

“We have to hurry Noel.”

“Wait? What? Why?” He asked in confusion.

“Stotch seems to have signed himself up for some sort of trip. By himself.”

Noel blanched and looked at Wendy in horror.

“Okay, how the _fuck_ did you do that?”

“Noel, I may not have gotten super powers, but I’m still Call Girl, and Call Girl can hack anything.”

Noel laughed and snagged Wendy’s wrists.

“I trust you with my life and I need you to trust me with yours.” He said with a grin, “we need to get to Stephen _fast_ , and we’re too far away to be able to get there on time on foot.”

“Oh jesus…” Wendy said, turning her hand and gripping Noel’s wrist in turn. “Do what you have to but don't you _dare_ let go.”

Noel just made a crossing motion over his heart channeled his powers.

——

When Noel _finally_ stopped blinking through time and they were both in front of Butters’ old house, Noel pitched forward and leaned heavily on his knees, his breath coming out in uneven pants.

“ _Fuck,_ that was a lot of travel in very little time.” He mumbled, discreetly checking his Life Line wincing as it now read **65:7:2:302:48**.

Besides him Wendy retched and Noel made a point to not look at her as she threw up.

“Please, remind me to _never_ trust you again.” She croaked.

“Got it, always trust Noel, you’re sweet.” He sassed, laughing as Wendy punched him weakly. “You love me, now get up and let’s go, we have to get Stotch.”

Wendy shakily got to her feet and looked warily at the house.

“We should wait for backup, we both can fight, but you just used a lot of energy and I’m afraid we can’t take an entire group of people with just the two of us.” She said.

Her pleas fell on deaf ears, because Noel was already up and striding to the front door.

Wendy rushed forward and grabbed Noel, pulling him back and watching the house desperately, hoping no one inside had seen him approach.

“Noel listen, maybe we shouldn’t confront him.” She whispered, sighing when Noel turned around to glare at her.

“He kidnapped one of my best friends, I can’t just sit around while t-they do god k-k-knows what to him!” He hissed, clearing his throat as his distress started making his mutism act up.

“Noel I _know_ , I know you care about him and we’re _going_ to follow him.” She said, “but I think we can track him, it’d be better to let him go and track his exact whereabouts so we can find the missing children _and Butters_ easier.”

Noel fell silent and looked at the ground for a while before he tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Then he looked at Wendy and nodded.

“I need you to promise me that if I agree to this, you’ll be able to track him _anywhere he goes_.” He said quietly, looking at Wendy in fear, “we need to find Butters. He’s my _friend_.”

Wendy pulled Noel into a hug and nodded, pulling away from him and walking towards the door.

As she arrived at the door and raised her hand to knock, the door swung open and out came a very flustered Stephen Stotch.

“Oh, Wendy, what are you doing here?” He asked, surprised evident on his face.

“Well, we’re asking around to see if anyone might have seen who took your son.” She said, “do you know anything Mr. Stotch?”

Stephen’s face contorted into such a look of confusion that, if Noel hadn’t been looking for it, he might have actually believed that the man was concerned and confused.

But Noel _was_ looking for it, and he had seen a  glimpse of satisfaction that had crossed his face.

Just for a second, but it was enough.

“My son’s been kidnapped?!” He exclaimed, false concern lacing his voice, “I _knew_ i shouldn’t have let him go with those awful government people!”

“Please,” Noel spoke, his voice soft and sad, genuine emotion leaking through. He had years of practice with twisting his voice around to fit the  situation, something Stephen clearly didn’t have. “Please if you know anything you need to tell us.”

Stephan’s attention was pulled from Wendy and his eyes were immediately on him. Noel shuddered as something _hungry_ replaced the faux concern in Stephen's eyes.

Noel never liked Stephen Stotch, he was always… weird around him, always insisting that he stay around when Noel used to come over to play with Butters, asking him weird questions and giving him compliments when he really didn’t need them. One time, when he was much, much younger, the older man had asked him to sit on his lap for a moment and that ended any and all of Noel’s trips to Butters’ home.

From then on any and all play dates were at the Lewis household.

“You’ve grown into such a pretty young man Noel.” Stephen said, making Noel glower at him, “are you eating enough?”

“The facility feeds me more than enough Mr. Stotch, now please, could I see your phone for a second?” He asked.

Stephen immediately stepped back as soon as the question was asked, looking at the two suspiciously, the gross seeking look torn from Noel for the moment.

“Why do you need to see my phone?” He demanded.

Noel barely stifled a groan and discreetly tapped a finger against Wendy’s back, a message saying “I got this.”

He immediately got Stotch’s attention when he licked his lips and Noel’s voice took on an echoing, honey tone.

“Come on now,” he purred, leaning forward just a little and looking at Stephen through his eyelashes. “Just one little peek?”

Noel knew that the Charm had taken hold when Stephen handed over the phone with no further arguments. He also knew it was a deep rooted Charm because the older man immediately pulled him into a _very_ tight grasp when he took the phone

“Noel!” Wendy said, moving forwards to grab him as he struggled with keeping Stephen's face away from his person.

“Take the phone, take the phone, take the fucking phone!!!” Noel snapped, passing her the phone and hissing in disgust as the momentary release allowed Stephen to get close enough to bite his ear. “Please hurry!”

Wendy scrambled to unlock the phone, embedding a tracking virus deep into the phone and making sure it was virtually untraceable so that it couldn’t be detected until they had found the location.

“Okay it’s done!!” Wendy said, handing him the phone back, where Noel slipped it back into Stephen’s pocket and blinking out of his grasp, a full body shudder going through him as he was _finally_ free.

“Jesus fuck the things I do.” He mumbled, snapping his fingers and breaking the Charm when Stephen made a move to grab him again.

The man blinked twice and recoiled, looking at Noel in horror and extreme embarrassment and, oh great, that hungry look again, Noel took a step back when Stephen made to move forward and he gripped his ear for added effect.

“I, uh, I.” He stuttered as he looked at the two teens, “I don’t know anything, and I need to go, excuse me.”

Wendy and Noel watched as Stephen got into his car, examined his phone and deemed it safe, before he was backing out of the driveway and away from the house.

As the two watched him go, Noel gurgled, gagging slightly as he took deep breaths to keep his nausea in check.

“Are you okay?!” Wendy asked once the car was out of sight, turning his head to examine the damage. “What the fuck did you do?! Turn the Charm on full blast?”

“ _Fuck_ no! I just used a little so he’d just give me his goddamn phone!” Noel said, hissing as Wendy prodded the bite marks on his ear. “I guess he had some sort of deep seeded infatuation with me or something!”

“That’s _so wrong_. On so many levels.” She said, taking a tissue from her bag and dabbing at his ear. “I don’t think it’ll scar, but it absolutely is bleeding.”

“I have never wanted to drink bleach more in my life than at this moment right now.” He lamented, taking the tissue from Wendy and holding it to his ear as the two walked back down the doorsteps and to the sidewalk. “And that’s not even a suicide joke, cause that’s not cool, I literally just feel like that’s the only way I’ll ever be clean again.”

Wendy snorted and pulled Noel down to sit next to her, the two of them watching the map that showed them where Stephen was, the little flashing light traveling towards the airport.

“That won’t turn off if he turns on airplane mode right?” Noel asked.

“Of course not, now come on, let’s get back to the facility and catch the fuckers who took Butters.” She said, getting up again and starting the walk to the facility.

“Hell yeah! Let’s show em South Park is the _last_ place someone should target!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Id say im sorry, but then thatd be a lie soooo ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I am however, very sorry it took me this long to post a new chapter, I cant promise it wont happen again, but its finals time for this university student, which means until next week its study and crunch time.


	11. Lights, Camera, Fight!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first Noel, was a kindly soul, a pathetic little thing who didn’t want to go.
> 
> The second Noel was a bitter young boy, so cautious was he that he never found joy.
> 
> The last Noel, we're watching him here, though his pretty appearance draws many a leer.

When they got back to the facility, Wendy’s phone was taken from her and plugged into a big screen, from there it was a waiting game, watching as Stephen Stotch led them to the end of his route, and with luck, to the missing children.

“What if he goes to another country?!” Tweek asked, twitching in his seat.

“Then we’ll follow him there.” Noel said, no room for argument in his tone.

The group of Instigators and Informants talked anxiously with one another, and Noel’s eyes were glued to the flashing red dot that signified Stotch. He was so focused, he didn’t hear that someone came up behind him until there was a hand prodding the bandaid on his ear, making him jerk around and twist the arm that touched him.

“ _Fuck_!!! Ow, good reflexes Elle.” Kenny laughed, his smile pained, “please let go of my arm though.”

“Oh fuck!” Noel said, a flash of panic running through him as he realized he almost attacked his long time crush and let go of Kenny’s arm. “Shit Ken, I’m so sorry!”

“Nah it’s cool, shoulda warned ya before I touched you.” He said, waving off Noel’s fretting, “gotta ask though, what happened?”

“Huh? Oh uh, when we were searching the alleys, I nicked myself on stray piece of wire.” He lied, shrugging slightly, “I’ll live don’t worry.”

“ _Wire_!? Elle, you don’t know what kinda contaminants those things have! Lemme take a look at it-” Kenny said, looking startled when Noel slapped his hand away.

“No!!” He snapped, covering his ear with one hand. “I mean, uh, there’s no need, Wendy made sure to clean it and everything, it’s fine, I’m _fine_.”

Kenny narrowed his eyes at Noel and Noel suddenly felt very, very small, shrinking under what he thought was a look of disgust.

“Noel.” Kenny started, making Noel flinch, Kenny _never_ called him by his full name. “If someone hurt you, I want to know about it.”

“No one hurt me _Kenneth_ , but even if someone did, why do you care?” Noel snapped, crossing his arms and glaring.

He continued to glare even as Kenny took a step back in surprise and looked… guilty? Why? What did he have to be guilty about.

“Elle… I, uh, have something to tell y-”

“The trackers stopped!!”

Noel’s attention immediately went from Kenny to the big screen and he was out of his seat in what seemed like a millisecond.

“Wendy where is that?!” He demanded, looking at his friend.

Wendy was tapping away at her phone before she thrust it up in the air in triumph.

“Port Deposit, Maryland!”

——

Anomaly fidgeted with the delicate silver circlet in his hands, before they’d been dispatched onto a plane heading to Port Deposit, he’d been handed a familiar circlet and a warning to take care of himself.

Of course he remembered the circlet, how could he ever forget it, when the Breaches first started and the Instigator program was just starting out, Anomaly was always reckless, taking unnecessary risks and rushing in without looking at the opponent.

Anomaly was also the reason why Informants were in remote locations away from the action instead of on the scene.

He closed his eyes as the memories came flooding back. He had been so stupid, so, so stupid. He’d just wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible, in doing so he got hurt.

And his Informant paid the price.

“Anomaly.” Came a deep, gruff voice, accompanied by a hand on his shoulder.

Anomaly’s eyes snapped open and he looked at Mysterion, smiling weakly at the concerned expression on his fellow hero’s face.

“Mysterion. Something wrong?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.

His and Mysterion’s costumes were almost exact opposites of each other. They both wore spandex, but Mysterion’s was a) purple and b) armored and designed to keep him alive for the longest possible time. Anomaly’s costume on the other hand was accompanied by a long coat and that was it. It was designed more for mobility than combat.

Oh, and Mysterion had his signature cape and mask while Anomaly was never afraid to show his face.

“What is that?” Mysterion asked, taking the silver from him.

Anomaly watched him turn it in his hands, the light glinting off the delicate loops and intricate designs of the circlet, and the simple, small blue gemstone shone with its own unnatural light.

He’d designed it himself, based on the circlet the “elves” had given him after the fiasco with the Stick of Truth.

After a moment, Anomaly took the circlet back, looking at the headpiece with a look of grim acceptance.

“It’s insurance.” He said, bowing his head and pushing the circlet onto his forehead, a small blue film covering it once it was on.

“For who?”

“Everyone.”

The circlet was designed to keep parts of his powers in check, it was given to him only if the mission in question had a 90% chance of resulting in extreme injury to his person.

After all, the last thing they needed was one of their own feeding off of the lives of his teammates in order to stay alive.

———

“Anomaly, Mysterion, do you copy?” Wendy asked, her voice slightly distorted from the comm frequency.

“Loud and clear.” Mysterion said, eyes focused ahead.

“Always~” Anomaly said, swinging his legs from where they were dangling off of the tree they’d found themselves perched in.

“A scam of the building shows multiple people inside, we can’t send in a drone without risking being caught.” She said, “the other teams are in position, we’re here for backup so call us if things start going south.”

“Alright everyone,” Token’s voice proceeded where Wendy stopped, “ready to go in?”

“Ready.” The voices of the instigators said in unison.

“On my Mark.”

“3.”

Anomaly cracked his neck and zeroed in on the platform he was supposed to teleport to, taking Mysterion’s hand in his.

“2”

A little ways away, Frostbite channeled lighting into his fingertips, positioning them hovering slightly above the fuse box they’d found.

“1”

Fastpass and Coon braced themselves to rush in the second Toolshed broke open the door. Said hero had his drill aimed at the door, the power tool pulsing with yellow energy.

“ _LET'S GO_!”

The second the word was uttered the area exploded into action, the lights went out and Anomaly heard the door being thrown off its hinges followed by shrieks of pain as Coon and Fastpass dealt with the guards at the door.

A millisecond later Anomaly and Mysterion had warped through the glass of the window and Mysterion melded into the shadows, going to find and rescue the missing children.

Anomaly then leaped over the railing of the platform, and landed heavily onto a running guard, bolting into the fight soon after, pulling his sword into existence and using it flat side up to knock a man out of the way.

“Duck!!” Frostbite’s voice came from above him and Anomaly had a strong feeling of deja vu, dropping to the floor as a huge thunderbolt electrocuted a man who seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

“What the fuck?!” Anomaly asked, tapping the comm in his ear. “Guys, what’s going on with some of these enemies?!”

“Running diagnostics, keep moving towards the basement!! There’s a large cluster back there!” Wendy said.

Anomaly didn’t need to be told twice, he spun on his heel, narrowly stepping out of the way of Fastpass, who zipped by faster than he could blink, running towards the back.

“Proceed with caution!” Timmy said, making Anomaly jump at the telepathic interference, “there are many enemies who have powers as well!”

“Gotcha!” He said, tapping the comm again as Frostbite, Toolshed and Coon caught up with him, “guys be careful, it’s not just the missing children who have powers!”

Silence fell over the comm and Anomaly felt ice seep into his veins as though Frostbite had frozen him solid.

“Craig what’s going on?!” Frostbite demanded.

“Calm down,” Craig’s monotone voice echoed through the comm “their vital signs are fine and from what we can see there’s no sign of them being caught.”

“Shut up for a second!” Coon snapped, holding a finger to his lips as they arrived at top of the staircase leading to the basement and a stationary Fastpass.

“Oh h-hey f-f-fellas.” Fastpass said, motioning to the strange red beam across the landing, blocking them off from the basement, “I asked T-token to l-look into what t-t-this little d-device is.”

“And?” Coon demanded.

“I-it seems to be s-s-some sort of s-sensor, I-if we c-cross it, it’ll s-s-set off an a-a-a-alarm.” He said, “T-T-Token also said t-t-that it’s p-probably set t-to detect p-p-powers.”

“Well shit.”

Toolshed stepped forward and narrowed his eyes at the beam, following it to the wall where a little device sat.

“I got this guys.” He said, yellow spreading over his hands as he approached the wall, he ran his fingers over the device, taking care not to touch the sensor.

A couple seconds later the sensor flickered and turned off.

“Nice Toolshed!” Anomaly said, slapping him on the back and hurrying after Fastpass, who zipped down the stairs. “Let’s go help Mysterion!

———

It was such a relief for Mysterion to see that this was in fact where they were keeping the children. What wasn’t a relief was how Butters Stotch stood in front of a large group of people with his arms out, trying to protect the whimpering children.

“Butters!! You stand aside right now!” Stephen said, stepping forward, his face red with anger.

“No! You keep wanting to hurt these kids! You thought I’d actually _help_ you do it!” Butters yelled back, lightning sparking and striking the ground when his father attempted to take a step forward. “Stay back!”

“Butters you are going to be grounded if you don’t step away this instant.”

“I don’t care! You can’t ground me anymore!”

“I am your father and y-”

“YOU LOST THE RIGHT TO CALL YOURSELF MY DAD WHEN YOU TRIED TO KIDNAP ME!” Butters yelled.

“Why you little…” Stephen hissed, stopping when another man in a hooded cloak stepped forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

“I thought you said your son would be compliant.” The man said, his voice gravelly.

“He’s supposed to be!” Stephen argued, falling silent again when the man raised his hand.

“It’s fine, just means this will take longer than expected.”

The man stepped forward and Butters raised his chin in defiance another bolt of lightning crackling at his fingertips, begging to be released.

“Tell me Leopold.” The man began, a grin in his voice, “What, is your _worst fear_?”

The second the words were uttered, Butters arms fell to his side and his eyes widened in terror, flinching back at enemy only he could see.

And that was all Mysterion needed to see.

“Let him go!” He shouted, tearing himself out of the shades, making the group of people turn to him.

There were about 6 of them, not counting Stephen, an easy enough fight, at least that was his thought before one of them spawned water from his finger tips and balls of water at him.

The second he dodged out of the way of one, it became apparent that the water was designed with the thought of wrapping around his head and drowning him. A second ball of water zipped towards him and Mysterion was forced to drop and dodge away from the water as the liquid got faster and faster.

And then they all solidified into ice and broke apart into sharpened shards, turning against their owners wishes and shooting back towards the group.

“Chill out!” Frostbite’s giddy voice came from the stairwell in the corner and Mysterion never thought he’d be so happy to hear a pun.

“Mysterion!” Are you okay?” Anomaly asked, jogging towards him as the rest of team jumped into the fight.

“The leader did something to Butters, he’s in some sort of trance.” He said, pointing to the blonde who was now on the floor covering his head.

Anomaly swore and motioned to the fight, where Coon had just ripped a huge vine out of the ground and was trying to attack its owner.

“I got Butters, go help everyone else!”

Mysterion nodded and charged forwards towards the man who had attempted to drown him, rearing his fist back and punching at him, only to be foiled by a water wall.

“Catch!” Frostbite yelled and Mysterion whirled around to catch the metal bat that came at him.

He pulled it over his shoulder and swung at the wall that was now made of ice, shattering it and then using the momentum to swing the bat into his charging friend, who appeared to be made of stone.

The water man covered himself in a thin film of water to avoid taking any hits from Mysterion’s new weapon only to immediately be called out by Frostbite.

“Hey dumbass!” He called, sparks flying around his fingers as he brought his hands down, “water is conductive!”

Lighting struck the man square in the chest and he spasmed violently before collapsing into a heap and then Frostbite was leaping forwards to help Fastpass against a man who was throwing solidified light like daggers at him.

Mysterion continued to duck and move around the stone skinned woman, slamming his bat into her whenever he got the opportunity.

Meanwhile Anomaly ran towards Butters sliding on his knees to avoid a fireball being thrown at his head, he stopped in front of his friend and snapped his fingers in his face.

“Come on Leo, come on Leo! Snap out of it!” He said, shaking him and then pulling him to the ground when another fireball was thrown at him, making the children scream. “Kids, kids get against the wall, we got this!!”

Anomaly pulled Butters to his feet and rushed him away from the area, drawing the fire (literally) away from the children.

“Leo!!” He said, ducking again, “Come on you fucker!!”

He dragged Butters behind the stairwell, granting them momentary relief from the attacks, allowing him to think about what he could do to pull him out of his head.

“Ugh, Mysterion said something was done to put him in a trance.” Anomaly mumbled, frowning. “Maybe if I try to charm him…”

Taking a breath, Anomaly leaned towards Butters’ ear, whispering lowly, his voice echoing and sweet.

“Come on back to me Leo~”

The Charm settled as planned and for a second Butters’ eyes turned pink with the Charm before it fizzled and his eyes became unfocused again.

“FUCK!” Anomaly spat, peering behind him to make sure they still weren’t being pursued.

“No..el?” Butters whispered and Anomaly looked at him in surprise, the Charm must have done something.

“Yes! Yes, Leo, Butters, it’s me, come on, snap out of it~”” He said desperately, taking a hold of Butters’ shoulders. “You’re stronger than it! Fight~”

Butters shook his head a little as the much stronger charm hit him like a wave and after a moment his eyes focused again and he shuddered.

“What just… what just happened?” He asked quietly, jumping when Anomaly hugged him tightly. “Well hi Noel! Did you get me outta that place?”

“I don’t know what you were seeing but I’m glad your back.” Anomaly said, pulling him to his feet. “Now we’ve got a fight to win and some children to save! You ready to cause some chaos, Professor?”

Butters, laughed and nodded, taking Anomaly’s coat when it was offered to him.

“Always ready!” Professor Chaos said, rubbing his hands together, sparks flying everywhere as the two ran back into the battle.

——

It was clear to him that they were losing.

The hooded man scowled as he batted away another icicle flung at him by that annoying spaz, motioning for Moira to block his attacks with her body.

They were losing sure, but a loss could happen on both sides.

He stalked around, eyes zeroing in on the hooded boy in purple, taking hits as though he weren’t afraid of dying, and on the boy with the silver circlet on his head (Stotch’s reward for getting the children), using a sword of time to attack anyone who hurt the boy in purple.

McCormick and Lewis. His two little projects, both working exactly as he thought they would.

One final test.

“Stotch.” He said motioning for the man, “grab Noel.”

“What? Why?!” Stotch asked, panicked at the thought of running into a fight against monsters.

“You’re a civilian, despite your _disgusting_ obsession with him, he won’t attack you. Go. Or I’ll kill you.”

Stotch was always a coward, and he’d been counting on that when he’d recruited him in the first place, a false promise that he’d deliver the Lewis boy to him if he helped.

It was all going _perfectly_.

————

There’s very few things that can catch Anomaly off guard when he’s fighting.

Unfortunately, someone wrapping an arm around his waist and a hand around his mouth was one of those things.

His shout of surprise was muffled by the hand and when he looked up at his captor, he wasn’t totally surprised to see Stephan Stotch dragging him away from the fight.

That didn’t stop him from struggling.

“You always were a feisty one Noel.” Stephen said, voice coming out exerted by how tightly he had to hold onto Anomaly. “It’s fine, I like it when you fight.”

The confession had goosebumps popping over his skin and he fought harder, biting at his hand and Stephan dug his nails into the skin around his cheeks.

“You know, that outfit of yours leaves so little to the imagination, still I can’t wait to peel it off of you, leave you tied up and writhing under me.”

Anomaly made to blink out of his grasp again, stopped only by Stotch’s tongue tracing his ear and removing the bandage he’d so painstakingly placed to hide the bite marks.

“I find it insulting that you’re hiding my present to you.” He said, lowering his head and biting down on Anomaly’s neck, making the boy flinch and groan in clear disgust. “See, you do like it.”

“Enough Stotch.” Came a different voice and Anomaly glowered at the leader of this hell show. “Tell me Noel. What is your _worst fear_?”

And suddenly there wasn’t a pair of arms around him, there wasn’t a fight, there was just the headless body of his father and it was _crawling towards him, reaching-_

And Noel screamed.

———

When Anomaly screamed, Mysterion felt his heart drop into his stomach and he hurriedly kicked his weakened opponent away from him, whirling around to look at where the scream had come from.

The battle stopped as their group turned to see one of their friends held tightly in Butters’ father’s arms.

Noel’s eyes were wide and unseeing, tears falling down as he thrashed in Stephen’s arms, screaming loudly at something that wasn’t there, begging it to stop.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!” Mysterion shouted, the fake toughness of his voice burning his throat as he took a step forward.

“Just showing him a little bit of his deepest darkest fears.” The hooded man said, grinning under his hood, “would you like me to release him from his torment?”

“Let him go or I swear to every deity, I will rip your heart out!” Mysterion threatened, storming forwards, his friends flanking him in an instant, shadows licking at his feet.

“As you wish.”

The next few seconds felt like they moved in slow motion, and there’s nothing Mysterion wanted more than for time to have stopped.

The hooded man reached up and ripped the circlet from Noel’s forehead, throwing it aside and plunging a knife into his stomach repeatedly in the next second.

Then he grabbed Stephen and used him as a human shield, the knife pressed tightly against his throat, insurance against Fastpass just snatching Stephen away.

“I’d suggest you get out of here fast.” The man said, jerking his head to where Noel had collapsed. “I’m sure his powers will start to go haywire very soon.”

He approached a wall, holding a hand to it and a different hand came out, grabbing onto the man’s wrists and pulling him through the wall, leaving Stotch behind.

“NOEL!!” Kenny yelled, rushing forwards to pull the gasping teen into his lap, pressing his hand into the wound on his stomach.

Stan moved to go help his friend, when a bright light caught his eye. The barcode on Noel’s wrist was glowing an angry red, small sparks shooting from it and he remembered what Noel had told him three months ago.

“This wasn’t about the children.” Stan said, covering his mouth.

“What?!” Tweek demanded, looking at Stan, “what do you mean?!”

“We need to get out of here, get the kids and run!!”

“Stan what the fuck is wrong with you now?!” Eric demanded, “I’m the last person to want to help the New Kid but we can’t just let him die! Not at this stage of the franchise at least.”

“No, this was his plan!” Stan shouted, running for the children huddled against the wall, motioning for them to start up towards the stairs, “If Noel gets hurt, his powe-!”

As he was explaining, the sound of an EMP went off in the room, and bright red tendrils extended from Noel’s wrists, and barcodes appeared on the bodies of the occupants of the room.

“WHAT'S HAPPENING?!” Kyle’s voice shouted from the comm, static overtaking the feed, “YOU'RE CUTTING OUT WHAT- ”

Their comms died as the tendrils encircled all of them hovering maliciously over their barcodes- their lives.

“W-what’s h-happening?!” Jimmy demanded.

“Noel’s powers won’t let him die,” Stan said, slowly herding the children towards the stairs, the tendrils following his every movement. “He’s going feed on us so he’ll heal.”

There were shouts of fear, but Stan was focused on leading the children to the stairs, however, the second one of them stepped on the stairs, the tendrils lunged.

———

**Biological systems shutting down.**

Fuck, being stabbed hurt. He was barely coherent.

**Activating emergency life support.**

Sure voice in his head, why the fuck not, he was in too much pain to care who he stole from.

**Calculating… 32 life forms identified.**

Well that’s certainly a nice meal, he’d live for a long time on all that life.

**Proceeding with life support in 3…**

Yeah this was fine, Noel knew there was no one around he cared about, feelings were for _humans_.

**2…**

Why was this part of the system so slow again?

**1…**

“ _Noel_.”

Wait.

**System halting.**

“ _Come on Noel, come back to me_.”

He knew that voice.

**Commencing override of host’s wishes.**

“ _Elle, please open your eyes_.”

No, that’s right. There was a _lot_ he cared about.

**Recalculating...**

Noel’s eyes flew open and he weakly turned his head and coughed up blood, it hurt, everything hurt.

“W-wha...t.” He gurgled, thrashing weakly.

“Shh, Elle, we need you to get rid of the tendrils, can you do that?” Kenny’s voice said, a hand gently running through Noel’s hair.

Noel shook his head rapidly, violent tremors shaking his form as the full weight of what was happening dawned on him.

“Can’t… can’t…” he heaved, “there’s… distance… limitation… run…”

Kenny barked out an order that sounded like run, and leaned down to press their foreheads together.

“You stopped yourself from hurting us. I’m so proud of you.” He whispered, holding Noel tightly.

“You’re… my friends.”

**Only 7 life forms remaining in vicinity. Commencing emergency life support.**

The red tendrils thrashed and repositioned themselves, sinking into the barcodes of the super powered scumbags they had been fighting.

Noel closed his eyes against the screaming that suddenly filled the basement as he fed on the lives of others, the wound on his stomach slowly being healed, until it stopped.

**Error: not enough life to continue healing. Death is imminent.**

His eyes opened again, and he looked at Kenny who was still on the floor holding him, and tears fell down his face.

“Elle?! What’s wrong?” He asked, concern all over his beautiful blue eyes.

“I don’t…” He wheezed, hiccuping from the force o his sobs, “want to...die.”

“Use your words gorgeous, come on, what can I do to help?”

Noel shook his head, even as another red tendrils extended from his wrist.

“Can’t… can’t…”

“Oh Elle.”

Kenny smiled at him, fumbling with the glove on his right hand, which shone with purple light- a barcode reading **??:??:???:?:??**.

“Don’t… you’ll die…”

“Elle I don’t think you get it.” Kenny said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to blood soaked lips, taking Noel’s left hand in his right. “There’s _nothing_ I wouldn’t do for you.”

The tendril latched onto Kenny’s wrist, slowly changing back from the bright red into a familiar bright blue.

Noel clung onto Kenny as though his life depended on it, (and it did) the exhaustion slowly catching back up to him.

**Biological systems stabilizing, forcing sleep mode.**

And Noel saw no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Little Time boy


	12. Timepiece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I’m so sorry about the lateness of this chapter, finals hit me last week and I had to puts all my energy into my classes
> 
> On the bright side I did pass everything!

When Noel opened his eyes, he was greeted with a white room.

For a second he thought he’d died, it had happened a couple times during The Stick of Truth era, he saw Mormons for less than a second before he was wrenched back into his body, time inexplicably “borrowed” from someone around him.

But then he heard the beeping and knew he was in the hospital, he made to talk, to call out to someone- _anyone_ , only to become excruciatingly aware that he _couldn’t_.

Panic spread through him before he remembered that no, this was normal, this is what usually happened when he stole time from others, the guilt of being alive while others died to feed him rendering him mute. The only downside was he knew very well that he would be unable to talk until the, almost overwhelming, fullness went away.

He heaved a sigh and fumbled around for the nurse button, clicking it once after he’s located it and slumping back against the pillows, continuing to stare up at the ceiling.

Faint but frantic footfalls hit his ears, as someone sprinted down the hall to his room and Noel figured that he must have been out much longer than he felt like he had been for the doctors to be in _that_ much of a hurry to see him.

The door was thrown open and he heard the sound of heavy breathing. Noel finally looked down from the ceiling and he thought his heart stopped.

Kenny stood in the doorway, hair a mess, eyes open wide and his parka was barely on his body, one sleeve half way down his arm, but he was _alive_ , blessedly whole and _alive_.

Noel and Kenny stared at each other for a long moment, neither moving, neither talking, both just… _staring_ , as though if they moved the other would vanish.

“ _Noel_.” Kenny breathed, as though he was looking at a ghost and Noel couldn’t take it anymore.

He was vaguely aware of the pain of having an IV ripped out of his arm, but he could care less, lunging at Kenny and tackling him to the ground, arms tightly around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder.

“Elle?!” Kenny said, catching him easily and making sure he got the brunt of the tackle, “Elle, you shouldn’t be out of bed!”

Noel shook his head viciously when Kenny tried to pry him off of his person, making pathetic whimpering noises as that’s all his vocal cords could manage.

From above him, he heard Kenny heave a fond sounding sigh and he picked Noel up effortlessly, setting him back on his designated hospital bed as a nurse rushed in, alerted by the machines shrieking their protest at Noel having suddenly vanished.

After a firm scolding and the nurse fussing over him, reattaching the IV and various other things he had accidentally ripped out when he threw himself out of bed, Noel and Kenny were finally alone.

Noel held out his arms and made grabby hands at the taller teen, who simply laughed and moved closer, allowing himself to be pulled into a hug. After a moment of being in a rather uncomfortable position, Kenny began inching closer until he could safely lift Noel and place him in his lap, burying his face in soft black hair.

“You smell like sterilization and death.” Kenny mumbled, snorting when Noel slapped him on the arm.

Noel made multiple texting motions with his hands and Kenny fumbled around in the bedside table for a while, eventually coming out with his phone, smuggled in by Wendy.

“Here.” He said, handing it to him.

The second he had the phone, Noel turned text to speech on and typed away rapidly.

“You’re okay!” The feminine, robotic voice of Siri said.

“Of course I am, did you honestly think I’d stay dead Elle? I’m hurt.” Kenny said, grinning at him even as he placed a hand on his heart.

“Hush, I didn’t know what sort of effect stealing time from you would have.” Noel typed, “I didn’t know if you would be okay or if I… I killed you permanently.”

“Noel, even if I had passed away for good, I wouldn’t’ve held that against _you_. You did what you had to, to survive, can’t fault you for it.”

Noel shook his head viciously, trying to hold back tears.

“I’m a parasite, I’ve accepted that, but I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if I’d killed you or any of my friends. Except maybe Cartman.”

Kenny let out a loud cackling laugh, the movement of his body from the force of his laughter gently jostling Noel.

“I do have one question for ya Elle.”

“What’s that?”

“The circlet, you said it was insurance for _us_ , what did it do?”

Noel’s fingers stilled and he looked down at the phone.

“It suppressed The ‘System’.” He said.

“The System? What’s that?”

“It’s just what I call the uh, voice in my head.” Noel explained, typing rapidly, “it’s not, I don’t think it’s real? I think it’s a physical manifestation of my powers, it calls me it’s ‘host’ and whenever I get hurt, my powers go haywire and… Well you know the rest.”

“So this… System as it were, keeps you alive if you’re fatally injured?”

“More like if I’m ever close to death it steals time from others to reverse the effects on me. Be it a fatal injury or old age, I’ll steal time and reverse it.”

“And the circlet suppresses that?”

“Yeah, stops my powers from going haywire, stops me from ‘activating’ the system.”

“You would have died.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“If the man who hurt you hadn’t removed the circlet you would have _died_ Noel.”

“Yes, and?”

Kenny slammed his fist into the side of the bed and Noel jumped. He jerked back from Kenny, eyes wide with shock.

“This facility condemned you to death!”

Noel shook his head rapidly, hands searching the sheets for his discarded phone.

“Ive never seen that thing as part of your costume, you were given it before we left and that means they _knew_ you could be _killed_!”

“IT WAS MY IDEA!!” Noel croaked, dissolving into a coughing fit immediately after he yelled, clutching his throat as though he couldn’t breathe.

He grabbed the phone that he had dropped while Kenny was ranting, shakily pulling it back up.

“The circlet was my idea, my design, _my creation_.” He explained.

“Wh- Noel, what do you-”

“When the Breaches first started and people were being paired with Informants, I was really, _really_ reckless. I knew my powers inside and out because well, like you I’ve always had em, they were apart of me and now I could show them without being afraid of being judged.

“One mission I… I got careless, I misjudged the gravity of the situation and I got hurt, _bad_. I passed out and when I came to, I was healed like nothing happened, but my Informant and the creature we were fighting were dead, and I had an extra 200 years added to my life.

The higher ups covered it up, said it was an accident and provided proof of the claim. But from then on Informants were to be in remote locations or at least 200 feet away from their Instigators at all times.”

Noel shook his head a couple times and looked at the phone with determination.

“Until Wendy, my Informants have shuffled around, I’ve never had the same one twice. On top of that, at _my_ suggestion, we had scientists create a suppression device that was placed in an accessory that I would carry around everywhere. I designed a circlet, figured that if it was likely to cause my death, I might as well be pretty for it.

Whenever there’s a very high chance that I will suffer a fatal injury on a mission, they’ll give me the circlet to wear, so that no one else has to suffer through me _eating_ them ever again.”

For a long while, everything was silent, Noel refused to look at Kenny, and Kenny had his eyes firmly glued to the white ceiling above the two, processing the information.

“Noel.”

Noel slowly lifted his head up to meet Kenny’s, starting slightly when the taller cupped his face. His heart froze mid beat as Kenny lowered his face towards Noel, their lips meeting in a soft, chaste kiss.

When they pulled away, Noel’s face was a bright red and for a second he thought he might faint from how much heat he was raidiating. His hands fumbled for the phone and eventually he just gave up and signed rapidly at Kenny.

“What, why? Why would you, you kissed me?” He signed, having to retry multiple letters.

“Noel, I told you that night you almost _died_ that there was nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you, why do you think I said that?”

“Pity? I was dying?” Noel signed.

Kenny rolled his eyes and pressed another kiss to Noel’s mouth, causing the other boy to flail and make strangled wheezing noises.

“Try again.”

“Are you going to kiss me every time I’m wrong?”

The only response Noel got was yet another kiss.

———

The first thing that Wendy noticed when Noel walked into the mess hall a day after being released was that he was hand in hand with Kenny McCormick.

The second thing was that he was okay.

“Girls. Look at Noel.” Wendy said as she watched Noel nearly trip over his own two feet (something he was prone to doing) and how Kenny caught him with ease.

“You don’t think…” Red whispered, a slow grin spreading across her face.

“He wouldn’t! Not without telling us.” Heidi responded, eyes zeroing in on the two approaching the lunch line.

“Unless it was _McCormick_ who asked.” Nichole said, flipping through the group chat archives to find the bets that had been placed.

“There’s only one way to find out.” Wendy said, looking over what Nichole had sent her.

“I agree!” Bebe chirped, standing up in one fluid motion and waving Noel and Kenny over. “We ask.”

When the new coupling sat down at the table they were immediately swamped with questions and Noel groaned and put his head on the cool metal, gently shaking it each time a question was asked.

“Who asked who.” Bebe demanded, pointing a finger at the two.

“Oh wow, you weren’t kiddin’ when you said they’d do this Elle.” Kenny replied, smiling fondly at the boy who refused to put his head up.

“ _Noa_.” The Girls said in unison and Kenny watched a shudder go from Noel’s mid back all the way to the tips of his hair, and he sat up, pulling his hands up.

“Kenny asked first.” He signed, taking care to spell out the words so his boyfriend (oh my god he could actually say that now) knew what he was saying.

“YES!!” Nichole and Bebe shot up from their chairs. “Pay up girls!!”

Wendy shot Noel a dirty look as she pulled two twenty dollar bills out of her pockets and begrudgingly handed them over.

“You’ve betrayed me Noa.” Wendy said solemnly, shaking her head, “we worked so hard on your confession and you let him confess first.”

“Okay firstly, you _knew_ he liked me?” Noel signed, glowering at Wendy. “Second, we didn’t account for me _almost dying_ so I think I get a free pass.”

The girls at the table flinched back at Noel’s blatant disregard of his own life (a usual occurrence but still equally unnerving every time it happened) and shuffled around a touch uneasily before Heidi let out a slightly shaky scoff.

“No excuses!” She said, using the meanness she had developed thanks to Cartman, “it was obvious to everyone but you two!”

Noel stared at Heidi for a second before a smile split across his face and he mouthed _thank you_ at her even as he rapidly signed out his own argument, steering clear of his near death experience.

Halfway through his argument to the girls about why they _shouldn't_ sell his soul to the Devil to get their money back, Noel felt Kenny tap at the small of his back to catch his attention. He turned slightly to look at him, splitting his attention easily.

“You really weren’t joking when you said the girls weren’t nearly as intimidating as we made them seem.” Kenny said, leaning to whisper in Noel’s ear.

Noel’s shoulders shook in a silent chuckle and he gave Kenny a look, pulling out his phone with one hand.

“You guys put too much faith in the girls being sweet and normal.” He typed, showing the phone to Kenny before returning to the argument at hand.

Kenny chuckled fondly at his boyfriend, watching as he eventually stood up and signed rapidly as though he were yelling and the Girls responding with equal passion.

For now everything was perfect.

——

For now everything was perfect.

The wrench in his plans thrown by Stephen Stotch was minute and insignificant and he could easily pull himself back on track, he’d planned for the older man to be completely useless and for his obsession with Noel to get in the way.

It hadn’t been too much of a surprise to learn Noel could control who he stole time from with enough concentration and distraction, however it did make things a touch more difficult.

He had hoped that Noel would have devoured his little friends and caused intense hatred and distrust from the rest of the South Park population, driving him away from the facility and taking McCormick with him.

It was clear to everyone that the only person McCormick cared more for than Noel was his little sister after all.

Still, the wheels of his plans, continued to turn and with any luck, Little Karen wouldn’t be a factor in what he had in store for Kenneth and Noel any longer. Stotch’s last mission would see to that.

He could admit that he was getting a touch bored just sitting around and waiting for his two pawns to reach the end of the board and transform into the monsters he so knew they would become.

But well if there was one thing he knew, it was when it came to Noel Lewis, there was a lot of waiting involved. He was used to it.

After all, he’d been watching Noel since he’d been born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is this mysterious man?
> 
> Also next chapter should be a Christmas chapter because I like that shit


End file.
